7* 


THE  INTERPRETATION 

Mil  ■** 

OF  HISTORY 

By 

MAX    NORDAU 

TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN  BY 
M.   A.   HAMILTON 


WILLEY  BOOK  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  19 10,  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

New  York 


All  Ktghts  Reserved 


THE    INTERPRETATION 
OF   HISTORY 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  History  and  the  Writing  of  History  .       .         i 

II.  The  Customary  Philosophy  of  History     .       47 

III.  The  Anthropomorphic  View  of  History     .       88 

IV.  Man  and  Nature 133 

V.  Society  and  the  Individual   .       .       .       .159 

VI.  The  Psychological  Roots  of  Religion       .     206 

VII.  The  Psychological  Premises  of  History  .     251 

VIII.  The   Question   of   Progress    .        .       .       .316 

IX.  Eschatology 362 

X.  The  Meaning  of  History — Conclusion     .     391 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 
CHAPTER  I 

HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY 

The  confusion  almost  everywhere  prevalent  between 
history  and  the  writing  of  history  will  be  firmly  avoided 
in  the  course  of  the  subsequent  inquiry.  The  philosophy 
of  history,  even  in  the  hands  of  its  most  distinguished 
exponents,  has  tended  far  too  much  to  identify  the  object 
of  description  and  the  description  itself.  There  is  some- 
thing almost  ludicrous  in  the  unconscious  arrogance  of 
this.  The  lordly  declaration  of  the  historian,  "  History 
is  that  portion  of  the  world's  story  which  is  established 
by  tradition  and  recorded  in  written  history," 1  is 
prompted  by  the  confident  self-importance  of  the  bureau- 
crat, who  cries,  "  quod  non  est  in  actis,  non  est  in 
mundo !  " 

The  ancients  were  wiser  when  they  admitted  that  there 
had  been  heroes  before  Agamemnon,  although — 

"  illacrimabiles 
Urgentur  ignotique  longa 
Nocte,  carent  quia  vate  sacro  " — 

1  Ferdinand  Erhardt,  "The  Sphere  of  History:  Problems  of  His- 
torical Research,"  Berne,  1906,  p.  4.  Even  so  clear  a  thinker  as  P. 
Lacombe  ("De  l'Histoire  consideree  comme  Science,"  Paris,  1894) 
gives  this  narrow  definition:  "History  is  all  that  ive  know  of  the 
doings  of  our  ancestors"  (italics  are  mine). 


2         THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

eternal  night  holds  them,  unwept  and  unhonoured,  be- 
cause unsung  by  the  bard;  or,  as  Sadi  in  Gulistan  de- 
clares : 

"  Many  a  hero  now  forgotten  sleepeth  quiet  underground, 
And  upon  the  earth  no  echoes  of  his  glory  ever  sound." 

Friedrich  Schiller  had  none  of  the  arrogance  of  his 
followers,  or  of  their  desire  for  self-glorification.  He 
did  not  hold  that  nothing  is  history  but  what  is  repre- 
sented by  the  historian.  On  the  contrary,  in  his  "  What 
is  Universal  History,  and  why  should  it  be  studied?  "  he 
says:  "The  historian  selects  from  this  mass  of  occur- 
rences those  which  have  had  a  direct  influence,  and  one 
which  can  readily  be  traced,  upon  the  present  aspect  of 
the  world  and  the  condition  of  the  generations  living  at 
this  day."  This  limitation,  borrowed  by  Schiller  from 
Kant,1  appears  at  first  sight  to  be  illuminating,  but 
closer  examination  hardly  justifies  it. 

Schiller  himself  recognizes  that  a  "  long  series  of 
causally  interconnected  events  can  be  traced  from  the 
present  moment  to  the  origin  of  the  human  species." 
How,  then,  can  anyone  presume  to  make  an  arbitrary 
selection  among  these  countless  causes  of  which  effects 
continue  to  be  operative  in  the  most  recent  development? 
Why  should  those  occurrences  only  be  selected  which 

1  Emmanuel  Kant,  collected  works,  edited  by  G.  Hartenstein, 
Leipzig,  1867,  vol.  iv.,  "Idea  of  a  Universal  History  from  the 
International  Point  of  View,"  p.  157:  "They  (our  descendants) 
will  doubtless  only  value  the  history  of  ancient  times,  whose  records 
must  have  long  since  disappeared,  in  the  light  of  what  really  in- 
terests them — namely,  the  good  or  harm  done  by  nations  and  gov- 
ernments from  the  international  point  of  view." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    3 

"  have  exercised  an  influence  which  can  readily  be 
traced"  upon  the  present  aspect  of  the  world  and  the 
condition  of  the  generations  alive  to-day?  Is  an  influ- 
ence less  direct  and  important  when  it  can  be  traced, 
not  with  ease,  but  with  great  difficulty?  A  superficial 
view  of  any  human  event  will  suggest  visible  causes 
which  are  hardly  ever  the  real  ones.1  The  forces  which 
determine  events  are  often  deeply  hidden:  the  most 
penetrating  insight  and  laborious  investigation  is  neces- 
sary before  they  and  their  interrelation  can  be  discov- 
ered. Knowledge  which  stops  short  at  "  the  occurrences 
which  have  exercised  an  influence  which  can  readily  be 
traced  upon  the  present  aspect  of  the  world  "  may  ac- 

1  To  avoid  breaking  the  thread  of  my  argument,  I  will  give 
some  concrete  examples  in  this  note.  Popular  accounts  of  the 
movement  for  North  American  independence  place  its  beginning  on 
December  16,  1773,  with  the  attack  on  the  tea-ships  in  Boston  harbour, 
and  describe  it  as  being  caused  by  the  English  stamp  and  Custom 
dues.  Edouard  Laboulaye  ("Histoire  Politique  des  £tats  Unis," 
Paris,  1855)  occupies  nearly  200  pages  (vol.  ii.,  pp.  1-186)  in  showing 
that  the  beginnings  of  the  secession  of  the  United  States  coincide 
with  the  beginning  of  the  English  settlement  itself.  George  Ban- 
croft ("History  of  the  United  States,"  Boston,  1852)  takes  the 
same  view.  Vols,  iv.-vi.  deal  with  "  The  American  Revolution," 
the  beginning  of  which  he  puts  as  far  back  as  1748.  Bancroft  does 
not  reach  the  attack  on  the  tea-ships  till  p.  487  of  vol.  vi.  The 
latest  historian  of  the  North  American  Revolution,  Mary  A.  M. 
Marks  ("England  and  America,  1763-1783:  the  History  of  a  Re- 
action"), dates  its  beginning  as  1763,  finds  its  causes  in  the  strife 
of  parties  in  England,  and  concludes:  "The  history  of  the  loss  of 
America  is  the  history  of  a  Tory  reaction." 

Wolfgang  Menzel  ("  The  Last  120  Years  of  Universal  History," 
Stuttgart,  i860,  vol.  ii.,  p.  1)  begins  his  account  of  the  French 
Revolution  thus :  "  The  greatest  event  of  modern  times,  the  French 
Revolution,  began  on  the  day  on  which  .  .  .  the  long-desired  meet- 
ing of  the  States-General  was  opened  by  Louis  XVI."  On  the 
other   hand,   Louis  Blanc   writes   in   his   "  Histoire   de   la   Revolution 


4         THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

count  for  such  a  view  of  history  as  Scribe  expresses  in 
his  "  Verre  d'Eau,"  or  Pascal,1  when  he  declares  that  the 
history  of  the  world  would  have  been  different  had  Cleo- 
patra's nose  been  of  a  different  shape.  No  doubt  our 
sympathy  is  principally,  if  not  exclusively,  aroused  by 
something  whose  relation  to  "  the  present  aspect  of  the 
world  and  the  condition  of  the  generation  living  at  this 
day  "  can  be  easily  seen.  But  how  nebulous  is  the  con- 
ception of  history  which  this  criterion  affords  us !  Ac- 
cording to  it,  what  was  history  for  the  past  generation  is 
no  longer  so  for  us,  and  what  is  history  for  us  will  be  so 
no  longer  for  the  generation  succeeding.  What  was 
history  to  the  Indians  and  Japanese  has  never  existed  for 

Frangaise,"  Paris,  1847,  vol.  L,  Preamble:  "History  begins  and 
ends  nowhere.  The  facts  which  compose  a  world  process  are  90 
confused  and  so  obscurely  connected  that  there  is  no  event  of  which 
the  first  cause  or  final  result  can  be  stated  with  certainty.  .  .  . 
How,  then,  can  the  real  starting-point  of  the  French  Revolution  be 
established?"  He  begins,  therefore,  with  John  Hus,  and  doe9 
not  reach  until  p.  258,  vol.  ii.,  the  summoning  of  the  States-General, 
which  Menzel  regarded  as  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution. 

Maxime  du  Camp  ("  Souvenirs  de  l'Armee,"  Paris,  1848,  pp.  65 
et  seq.)  ascribes  the  origin  of  the  February  revolution  to  the  fact 
that  Sergeant  Giacomoni,  of  the  14th  Line  Infantry  Regiment,  took 
upon  himself  to  have  a  man  shot,  apparently  a  painter's  model,  who 
had  tried  to  hit  the  captain  of  his  battalion  in  the  face  with  a 
torch. 

It  is  regarded  as  an  irrefutable  fact  by  many  French  publicists  that 
the  war  of  1870  was  caused  by  the  "forgery"  introduced  by  Bis- 
marck into  King  William's  despatch  regarding  his  interview  with 
Count  Benedetti. 

The  sinking  of  the  Maine  in  the  harbour  of  Havana  is  cited  as 
the  cause  of  the  Spanish-American  War,  etc. 

1  Blaise  Pascal,  "  Lettres  Provinciales  et  Pensees,"  new  edition, 
Paris,  1821,  vol.  ii.,  p.  155:  "If  Cleopatra's  nose  had  been  shorter, 
the  whole  face  of  the  earth  would  have  been  different." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    5 

Europeans  and  Americans,  and  vice  versa.  History, 
then,  changes  with  place  and  time.  The  chapters  that 
are  greeted  with  universal  excitement  to-day  will  be  as 
stale  to-morrow  as  the  novel  which  is  read  one  day  by 
all  the  world,  only  to  be  cast  into  the  waste-paper  basket 
on  the  next.  It  wanders  through  the  darkness  of  the 
past  like  a  man  with  a  lantern.  There  is  a  dim  circle  of 
light  around  it,  moving  as  it  moves  from  place  to  place. 
As  it  passes  on,  darkness  falls  upon  the  spot  that  was 
brightly  lit  up  yesterday,  and  what  it  now  illumines  will 
to-morrow  again  be  plunged  in  gloom. 

-  Since  the  caprice,  or  call  it  personality,  of  the  historian 
will  decide  the  manner  in  which  he  treats,  limits,  and 
selects  his  material,  and  this  according  to  the  definition 
laid  down  by  historians  in  a  body,  is  history  itself,  we 
logically  arrive  at  the  droll  conclusion  that  the  writer 
of  history  creates  it !  The  historian,  and  not  heroes  or 
peoples,  creates  it !  What  a  great  man  is  this  historian ! 
Those  who  toil  at  the  loom  of  time  sink  into  insig- 
nificance in  comparison  with  the  man  who  stands  behind, 
looking  on  more  or  less  attentively,  and  recording  their 
labours  more  or  less  correctly.  History  ceases  to  be  a 
series  of  objective  events  in  regular  progression,  whether 
that  progression  be  intelligible  and  capable  of  a  clear  and 
comprehensible  description  or  not,  and  becomes  depend- 
ent on  the  cast  of  a  mind  of  a  particular  human  being 
who  selects  from  the  mass  of  recorded  material  what 
suits  his  interests,  gratifies  his  feelings,  and  falls  in  with 
his  peculiar  aspirations;  its  arrangement  depends  on  his 
understanding,  and  its  form  on  his  artistic  ability.  In 
one  word,  history  has  no  longer  an  objective,  but  merely 
a  subjective  existence;  and  yet^Ranke  speaks  of  wishing 


6         THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

14  to  extinguish  his  Self,"  in  order  to  display  the  naked 
reality  of  things.  Well  might  Georg  Simmel *  remark : 
"  The  gratification  of  Ranke's  wish  to  extinguish  his  Self 
in  order  to  see  facts  in  themselves  would  destroy  the 
success  which  he  imagined  that  he  would  gain  by  it. 
Self  once  extinguished,  there  would  be  nothing  left  to 
observe  the  Not-Self."  I  would  add,  that  nothing 
would  be  left  to  feel  the  sympathy  with  human  beings 
and  their  deeds  which  is  the  impulse  to  any  description 
of  historical  events.  The  personality  of  the  historian 
governs  all  historical  narration,  Ranke's  included — 
speaks  in  and  through  it  in  the  effort  to  impress  itself 
upon  the  reader.  Let  us  quote  once  more  the  settled 
verdict  of  antiquity.  The  ancients  felt,  no  doubt,  that 
the  writing  of  history  was  an  art,  not  a  science,  aiming 
not  at  truth,  but  beauty,  and  assigned  to  it  therefore  an 
aesthetic  value  only.2 

In  its  early  Herodotean  origins,  history  was  a  form  of 
story-telling,  distinguished  from  Epos  only,  if  at  all,  by 

'Georg  Simmel,  "Problems  of  the  Philosophy  of  History:  a 
Scientific  Study,"  Leipzig,  1892,  p.  18. 

'Aristotle,  "Poetics,"  chap.  ix. :  "Poetry  is  more  philosophical 
and  useful  than  history."  Theodor  Mommsen  ("Roman  History," 
Berlin,  1885,  P-  5)  admits  that  "fancy  is 'the  mother  of  history, 
as  of  all  ooetry,"  and  thereby  recognizes  the  blood  relationship 
of  the  two — a  remarkable  admission  on  the  part  of  an  investigator 
■who  was  at  such  pains  to  present  history  to  the  world  in  the  light 
of  a  scientific  activity.  The  admission  has,  however,  become  a 
commonplace  with  historians,  who  constantly  repeat  it,  as,  to 
take  the  most  recent  example,  A.  F.  Pollard  ("Factors  in  Modern 
History,"  London,  1907,  p.  1):  "I  make  no  apology  for  placing 
imagination  in  the  forefront  of  all  the  qualifications  indispensable 
for  the  student  and  teacher  of  history.  .  .  .  Probably  it  includes 
fact  as  well  as  fiction,  and  signifies  the  power  of  realizing  things 
unseen." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    7 

its  prose  form ; *  and  to-day,  despite  all  its  claims  to  rank 
among  the  sciences,  despite  its  wordy,  painful  efforts  to 
pass  as  a  child  of  truth,  its  real  affinities  are  with  the 
novel.  The  only  difference  between  the  historian  and 
the  novelist  is  that  the  invention  of  the  former  is  limited 
in  regard  to  the  facts  of  which  a  recognized  version  is 
current.  He  cannot  arbitrarily  contradict  what  is  ac- 
cepted by  the  majority  as  established :  but  the  play  of  his 
imagination  is  uncontrolled  in  all  save  the  few  directions 
that  are  enclosed  by  indisputable  records.  There  is  no 
exaggeration  in  saying  that  history  as  it  is  written  is  a 
kind  of  roman  a  these  novel,2  generally  consciously,  more 
rarely  unconsciously.  To  speak  of  a  science  of  history 
is  to  play  with  a  term  whose  meaning  cannot  be  arbitra- 
rily altered.  Science,  in  the  most  limited  and  only  cor- 
rect meaning  of  the  word,  is  simply  the  knowledge  of  the 
causal  connection  of  phenomena,  and  of  the  universal 
natural  laws  which  they  express.  It  is  true  that  the 
word  is  used  in  a  wider  sense  to  cover  the  descriptive 
sciences,  which  confine  themselves,  in  the  lack  of  any 
mental  nexus  between  concrete  facts,  to  observing  them 

1  E.  Vacherot,  "La  Science  et  la  Conscience,"  Paris,  1870,  p.  94: 
"  In  the  hands  of  the  ancient  authors  history  is  amusing  and  moral, 
rather  than  historical."  P.  96:  "  Livy's  fabulous  tales  of  the 
origin  of  Rome  only  need  the  genius,  language,  and  songs  of  an- 
cient Greece  to  make  them  a  real  poem,  like  the  'Iliad.'"  P.  100: 
"  Quintus  Curtius  has  tried  to  make  the  history  of  Alexander  a 
heroic  poem  in  soaring  and  flowery  prose."  P.  103 :  "  Ancient  his- 
tory is  always  more  or  less  epic  and  dramatic,  an  inexhaustible  source 
of  pleasure  and  feeling,"  etc.  Quintilian,  "  De  Instit.  Orat.,"  ii.  4, 
says  naively:  "  Graecis  historis  plerumque  poetico  similis  esse 
Hcentia."     Not  only  "Graecis"! 

1  For  more  complete  treatment  and  establishment  of  this  idea,  see 
my  "  Contemporary  Frenchmen,"  Berlin,  1901,  pp.  19  et  seq. 


8         THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

as  exactly  as  possible,  and  arranging  them  according  to 
external  resemblances  for  the  sake  of  convenience.  Yet 
Herbert  Spencer,  for  example,  deprecated  as  untrust- 
worthy the  use  of  the  word  science  for  such  a  mere  cata- 
logue and  arrangement  of  bare  empiric  facts.  Now  his- 
tory is  not  a  science  in  the  strict  sense.  Success  may  for 
the  moment  appear  to  crown  the  efforts  of  the  philo- 
sophic historian  to  trace  a  causal  connection  between 
events,  and  lay  down  laws  governing  their  progress; 
but  criticism  makes  short  work  of  theories  so  hatched 
and  dogmatic  assertions  without  any  facts  behind  them. 
Nor  is  it  a  descriptive  science.  The  events  it  registers 
are  forever  withdrawn  from  actual  observation,  exam- 
ination, and  experiment,  and  nothing  can  be  re-estab- 
lished from  the  traces  and  records  that  are  left,  or  from 
the  testimony  of  human  witnesses,  except  by  the  as- 
sistance of  the  subjective  factor  in  guessing  at  conclu- 
sions, interpreting,  and  rounding  off.1 

Inaccuracy  of  description  need  only  be  mentioned,  in 
the  second  place,  as  a  less  essential  objection.  History 
is  never  successful  in  conceiving  events  and  setting  them 
down  exactly  as  they  took  place.  It  is  superfluous  to 
recall  the  innumerable  hackneyed  anecdotes  of  the  im- 
possibility of  acquiring  from  the  various  accounts  of 
eye-witnesses  an  irrefutable  picture  of  any  event  whatso- 
ever. Possibly  in  the  comparatively  near  future  the 
developed  methods  of  observing  and  recording  facts, 
the  increased  use  of  the  phonograph  and  the  snapshot, 

*  H.  v.  Humboldt,  "  The  Task  of  the  Historian,"  Proceedings  of 
the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  Berlin,  for  the  years  1820-21,  Berlin, 
1822,  p.  305:  "Thus  no  more  truth  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  facts  of 
history  than  to  the  results  of  tradition  and  investigation." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    9 

may  enable  us  to  obtain  an  objective  record  of  that 
aspect  of  phenomena  visible  to  the  senses  which  will  be 
definite  and  incontrovertible. 

But  even  so  the  gain  will  not  be  very  great.  The 
aspect  of  history  which  is  represented  by  concrete  events 
is  far  the  least  important.  That  which  is  great  and 
vital,  the  drama  of  the  human  soul,  is  completely  hidden 
from  direct  observation.  The  historian's  task,  accord- 
ing to  Maurenbrecher,  is  to  study  the  inner  life  of  the 
actors  in  events,  and  give  an  account  of  their  motives 
and  aims.  Let  him  devote  himself  to  this  task,  by  all 
means ;  but  what  likelihood  is  there  that  he  will  solve  it 
correctly  ?  Knowledge  of  what  is  in  the  heart  of  a  man 
is,  according  to  the  Bible,  reserved  to  God  alone.  The 
maxim  of  the  ancients,  "  know  thyself,"  is,  in  fact,  the 
recognition  that  to  do  so  is  difficult,  wellnigh  impossible. 
The  secret  of  a  man's  personality  is  often  hidden  from 
his  own  inward  view,  and  impenetrable  to  that  of  an  out- 
sider. No  one  who  has  the  least  suspicion  of  the  com- 
plexity of  a  highly  differentiated  intellectual  life  will 
attempt  to  penetrate  the  inner  processes  of  thought,  the 
underlying  motives  of  action,  and  lay  bare  the  ramifica- 
tions that  interpenetrate  the  bedrock  of  character,  tem- 
perament, and  the  subconscious  life  of  man,  the  alluvial 
deposits  of  his  life's  experience,  and  the  mysteries  of 
the  attractions  and  repulsions  that  sway  him.  The  his- 
torian has  to  deal  with  psychology  in  the  concrete,  with 
supposition  and  conjecture,  not  science:  he  is  a  creative 
poet  whose  characterization  may  be  illuminating  and 
convincing  like  that  of  the  novelist  or  the  playwright, 
without  any  assurance  that  it  thereby  resembles  the 
truth.      Every  historian,   even   of  the   most  moderate 


io       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

gifts,  tends  to  conceive  the  great  figures  of  the  past  and 
the  present  after  a  fashion  of  his  own,  different  from 
that  of  his  fellows.  Wallenstein  is  far  from  being  a 
unique  instance  of  a  character  "  whose  portrait  wavers  " 
(Schiller)  in  history.  Seldom,  indeed,  save  in  the  case 
of  persons  wholly  or  semi  fabulous,  who  are  not  really 
known  at  all,  or  known  only  through  a  single  author, 
is  there  any  unanimity  of  judgment  or  delineation.  Con- 
fusion comes  as  soon  as  the  sources  of  information  are 
more  abundant,  until  inaccuracies,  contradictions,  and 
subjective  interpolations  hide  the  true  physiognomy  of 
the  person  who  is  described,  even  from  the  sharpest 
critic.1 

Anyone  who  has  sufficiently  emerged  from  obscurity 
to  arouse  even  the  most  transitory  interest  on  the  part 
of  his  contemporaries  will  throw  up  his  hands  in  amaze- 
ment over  the  judgments  passed  upon  him,  his  person- 
ality and  his  influence,  and  over  the  personal  im- 
pressions he  has  made  on  different  minds ;  and  the  more 
important  the  individual,  the  wider  the  circle  of  ob- 
servations that  he  excites,  and  the  greater  the  number 
of  busybodies  who  feel  called  upon  to  express  an  opinion 
about  him,  the  more  striking  is  the  distortion  which  his 
image  undergoes.  The  incapacity  of  most  people  to  see 
others  as  they  are,  or  to  understand  them,  is  only 
equalled  by  the  impudent  assurance  with  which  they  give 
utterance  to  their  senseless  and  superficial  judgments 
upon  them,  judgments  often  hatefully  stupid  and  unjust. 

1  K.  Lamprecht,  "  Old  and  New  Tendencies  in  the  Science  of  His- 
tory," Berlin,  1896,  p.  18:  "The  history  of  persons  is  always  romantic 
in  character,  because  the  inner  motives  are  beyond  our  knowledge " 
— a  remarkable  admission  from  a  historian,  and  one  to  be  re- 
membered. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY     n 

Let  a  historian  even  venture  to  record  the  events  of 
the  present  or  very  recent  past,  and  he  finds  himself 
assailed  by  passionate  objections,  not  all  inspired  by 
party  feelings,  by  a  storm  of  justification  not  confined 
to  those  concerned  in  their  concealment  of  truths  painful 
to  their  vanity  or  interest.  The  excited  opposition  called 
forth  by  the  German  histories  of  Tritetschke  and  Sybel, 
Justin  McCarthy's  "  History  of  Our  Own  Times," 
Kinglake's  "  History  of  the  Crimean  War,"  Thiers' 
"  History  of  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire,"  Louis 
Blanc's  "  History  of  the  July  Monarchy,"  and  Gabriel 
Jianotaux'  "  History  of  the  Third  Republic,"  may  be 
recalled.1  What  is  depressing  is  that  this  arid  con- 
troversy seldom  contributes  to  real  enlightenment  on 
the  points  in  dispute:  it  issues  finally  only  in  the  setting 
up  of  one  assertion  and  one  opinion  against  another. 
Certainly  no  such  storm  was  roused  by  Grote,  Momm- 
sen,  or  Maspero.  At  the  most,  some  unexpected  in- 
scriptions will  roguishly  emerge  and  scatter  to  the  winds 
pages  or  even  whole  sections  of  their  narrative.     But 

1  Apart  from  polemical  articles  in  newspapers  and  magazines, 
see,  among  others:  against  Thiers'  character  of  Napoleon,  Barni, 
"Napoleon  ier  et  son  Historien,  M.  Thiers,"  Paris,  1869,  also 
Lanfrey  and  Taine:  against  Sybel's  account  of  the  effect  of  Sadowa 
on  the  French  Government,  Emile  Ollivier,  "  L'Empire  Liberal,"  vol. 
viii.,  "  L'Annee  Fatale,"  Paris,  1906. 

It  may  be  noted,  by  way  of  example,  that  Livy's  patriotism  pre- 
vented him  from  mentioning  the  conquest  of  Rome  by  Porsenna, 
with  which  he  was  familiar;  and  that  Grote,  in  his  "History  of 
Greece,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  216,  217,  relates  that  the  early  English  his- 
torians, from  Hardyng  and  Monmouth  to  Holinshed  and  Milton, 
recorded  the  descent  of  the  English  Kings  from  Brutus  and  Julius 
Oesar,  and  that,  when  later  students  suppressed  this  account  as 
fabulous,  they  were  accused  on  that  ground  of  want  of  patriotism- 
even  of  crime.  " 


12       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Alcibiades  and  Themistocles,  Marius  and  Sulla, 
Rameses  and  Psammetichus,  hold  their  peace  whatever 
is  said  of  them.  They  are  wise.  Could  they  express 
an  opinion,  they  would,  like  the  living,  utterly  fail  to 
recognize  themselves  in  the  pictures  drawn  by  their  his- 
torians. 

Objective  truth  is  as  inaccessible  to  the  writers  of 
history  as  is  Kant's  "  Thing  in  Itself  "  to  human  knowl- 
edge. For  the  events  of  the  past  he  has  to  rely  upon 
official  records,  which  even  the  most  cautious  and  well- 
informed  criticism  cannot  wholly  clear  of  the  colouring 
given  them  by  the  desire  to  conceal  unpleasing  facts,  or 
upon  the  circumstantial  evidence  and  the  testimony  of 
eye-witnesses  whose  unreliability  is  the  only  certain 
thing  about  them.  At  the  best,  his  representation  of 
character  is  an  embodiment  of  psychological  guesses  that 
may  or  may  not  be  fortunate.  The  attempt  to  discern 
the  causal  connection  of  events  and  the  laws  that  reg- 
ulate them  is  often  merely  arbitrary,  and  frequently 
quite  capricious.  Written  history  can  never  compass 
the  actual  event.  It  is  not  science,  but  literature:  a 
branch  of  fiction,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent;  a  supposition 
as  to  the  way  in  which  things  might  have  happened ;  an 
attempt  to  show  the  way  in  which  they  ought  to  have 
happened,  or  to  prove  that  they  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
happen  in  this  or  that  way;  a  subjective  intuition  on  the 
part  of  men  who  have  to  depend  on  vague,  uncertain,  or 
even  inadequate  information;  who  are,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  influenced  by  certain  tendencies,  and  led 
away  by  their  own  feelings,  prejudices,  sympathies,  and 
antipathies,  even  where  they  are  honest,  which  is  not 
always  the  case. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY     13 

Carlyle  was  a  historian,  but  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
describe  his  own  profession  in  the  most  contemptuous 
terms : '  "  Alas,  what  mountains  of  dead  ashes,  wreck, 
and  burnt  bones,  does  assiduous  Pedantry  dig  up  from 
the  Past  Time,  and  name  it  History  and  Philosophy  of 
History  .  .  .  and  over  your  Historical  Library  it  is  as 
if  all  the  Titans  had  written  for  themselves:  '  Dry  rub- 
bish shot  here'!  " 

It  is  as  superficial,  as  unreasonable  to  identify  history 
as  it  is  and  history  as  it  is  written  as  to  confound  the 
processes  of  Nature  with  the  delusions  of  the  human 
senses. 

History  has  its  own  existence,  different,  apart  from, 
and  transcending  written  history,  before  which  it  was, 
which  it  called  into  being,  and  which  awkwardly  tries  to 
follow  it.  History  in  the  widest  sense  is  the  sum  of  the 
episodes  of  the  human  struggle  for  existence.  The 
definition  hardly  needs  explanation.  History,  it  implies, 
is  the  record  of  all,  great  and  small,  that  man  has  done 
and  suffered,  all  that  he  has  thought,  imagined,  and 
achieved  within  the  limits  of  that  natural  and  artificial 
environment  into  which  he  was  born,  in  which  he  has 
to  live,  and  by  which  any  satisfaction  of  his  needs  and 
impulses  is  conditioned.  Between  the  dreary  existence 
of  the  most  obscure  and  miserable  creature  upon  earth 
and  the  triumphal  progress  of  a  world  conqueror  there 
is  no  essential  difference.  In  each  the  same  psycho- 
physical forces  are  at  work;  each  is  determined  by  the 
same  natural  laws.  The  fate  of  the  one  is  of  interest  to 
no  one  in  the  wide  world  save  himself;  his  departure  is 

'Carlyle,  "Past  and  Present,"  London   (Ward,  Lock  and  Co.),  no 
date,  p.  36. 


i4       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

as  unnoticed  as  his  entrance :  the  other  is  a  ruler  of  men, 
whose  thoughts  and  actions  dominate  the  lives  of  thou- 
sands— nay,  millions — of  his  fellow-creatures.  Yet  the 
difference  between  them  is  quantitative,  not  qualitative. 
Mankind  is  instinctively  aware  of  this  essential  equality 
of  all  human  individualities  and  their  destinies,  whether 
they  be  such  as  enter  into  the  purview  of  the  historian, 
or  such  as  for  him  possess  no  significance,  or,  it  may  be, 
are  merely  creatures  of  the  imagination.  Any  char- 
acter, whether  real  or  imaginary,  great  or  small,  that  is 
so  described  that  we  feel  the  impress  of  his  reality,  can 
enter  into  the  circumstances  of  his  life,  share  intimately 
in  his  thoughts  and  feelings,  joys  and  sorrows,  fills  as 
important  a  place  in  our  minds  and  memories  as  any 
hero  of  world-wide  renown.  Alexander  the  Great  is 
perhaps  no  better  known  and  no  more  admired  than 
Robinson  Crusoe;  many  a  mighty  general  or  statesman 
might  envy  the  fame  of  the  wandering  scholar  Thomas 
Platter,  or  Knight  Hans  von  Schweinichen.  The  immor- 
tality of  Samuel  Johnson  does  not  rest  on  his  works,  in 
which  the  present  generation  finds  small  pleasure,  but 
on  the  insight  into  every  detail  of  the  man  and  his  daily 
existence  given  us  by  the  faithful  Boswell.  Julie, 
Ophelia,  Jane  Eyre,  Virginia,  Manon  Lescaut  are  nearer 
to  the  mind  and  heart  of  posterity  than  Cleopatra, 
Agrippina,  or  Queen  Anne.  A  creation  like  Goethe's 
Wilhelm  Meister,  or  Gottfried  Keller's  Poor  Henry, 
which  the  seeing  eye  of  genius  has  lent  the  vivid  touch 
of  individuality,  and  placed  before  us  as  a  man,  is  as 
unforgettable  as  any  historical  character  whatsoever. 
Across  the  memory  of  the  human  race  past  events  flit 
like  shadows ;  no  fixed  boundaries  separate  the  real  from 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY     15 

the  imaginary.  Howsoever  powerful  a  great  man's 
influence  may  have  been  on  his  contemporaries  and  im- 
mediate successors,  it  seldom  lasts  a  hundred,  never  a 
thousand,  years,  and  for  posterity  he  is  but  one  among 
the  myriad  causes,  near  and  remote,  that  have  each 
played  their  indistinguishable  part  in  creation,  without 
possessing  any  immediate  significance  in  themselves. 
With  the  loss  of  their  direct  influence,  there  passes  even 
from  the  men  who  have  really  lived  and  have  made 
history  that  which  distinguishes  them  alike  from  the 
great  mass  of  average  mankind,  who  live  unknown,  and 
leave  no  mark  behind  them,  and  from  the  creations  of 
the  poetic  imagination,  than  whom  they  become  not 
more  interesting  but  less,  if  their  human  personality 
have  not  been  made  real  to  us  by  the  artistic  methods 
with  which  history  proper  has  nothing  to  do.1 

I  have  defined  history  as  the  sum  of  the  episodes  that 
make  up  man's  struggle  for  existence.  In  it,  therefore, 
is  included  not  only  the  combatant  man,  but  the  foes 
with  which  he  has  unceasingly  to  struggle — that  is,  not 
only  his  human  competitors  for  the  conditions  of  ex- 
istence, but  Nature  herself.  The  play  of  the  world 
forces,  whether  regular,  as  they  normally  are,  or  con- 
vulsive, as  upon  occasion,  are  as  much  a  part  of  history 
as  the  course  of  man's  efforts  to  assert  and  maintain 
himself  against  all  other  powers. 

There  is  a  recent  historical  school  that  concerns  itself 
solely  with  spiritual  and  moral  forces  in  history,  and 

1  P.  Lacombe,  "  De  l'Histoire  consideree  comme  Science,"  Paris, 
1894,  Introduction,  p.  cxii:  "The  artistic  historian  has,  as  his  first 
aim,  to  stir  the  feelings,  even  if  his  method  be  that  of  actuality.  .  .  . 
My  objection  to  him  is  that  he  brings  in  narratives  and  considerations 
that  have,  or  pretend  to  have,  a  scientific  character." 


1 6       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

conceives  it  as  the  conflict,  triumph,  defeat,  and  mutual 
adjustment  of  human  wills,  leaving  altogether  on  one 
side,  as  unimportant  and  worthy  only  of  a  casual  notice, 
any  events  that  have  not  been  completed  in  human 
thought  or  feeling  before  being  translated  into  act.  It 
tends  to  despise  the  old  chroniclers,1  who  faithfully  de- 
vote the  same  space  to  recording  dearths,  earthquakes, 
and  floods,  hail-storms,  unusual  cold  in  winter  or  heat 
in  summer,  and  the  appearances  of  comets,  that  they 
gave  to  wars,  coronations,  and  the  deaths  of  princes, 
thus  assigning  the  same  importance  to  events  resulting 
from  the  operation  of  human  will  and  those  originating 
in  the  blind  chance  over  which  man  has  no  control. 
This  contempt  is  misplaced.  The  modesty  of  the 
honest  old  chroniclers  is  more  consonant  with  the  true 
function  of  the  historian  than  the  lofty  confidence  of 
those  modern  adepts  who  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
decision  as  to  what  is  and  what  is  not  important  on  the 
wide  stream  of  the  processes  of  the  universe,  of  nature, 
and  of  human  life. 

The  purely  natural  events  that  are  entirely  outside  the 
action  of  the  human  will  have  had  a  greater  influence  on 
the  destiny,  not  only  of  individuals,  groups,  or  nations, 
but  of  human  existence  as  a  whole,  than  the  whole  range 
of  what  is  assumed  by  historians  to  be  essential  and  im- 
portant— than  the  foundation  of  states,  the  establish- 
ment of  religions,  the  rise  and  development  of  social 
institutions,  the  conceptions  of  law  and  property,  con- 

1  All  the  Renaissance  historians  modestly  call  their  histories 
"  Chronica  " — e.g.,  to  name  only  those  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Cario, 
Cluverius,  Gamerus,  Genebrard,  Kupferschmied,  Macker,  and  Ne- 
ander. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY     17 

stitutional  and  metaphysical  ideas.  An  ice  age  of  some 
thousand  years'  duration,  following  upon  a  considerable 
period  of  temperate  warmth,  will  more  completely  trans- 
form all  human  conditions  than  any  possible  action  of 
a  man  or  a  people.  Even  a  local  disturbance  may 
cause  changes  within  a  limited  area  of  time  and  space 
at  least  as  great  as  any  efforts  of  human  will  and  energy. 
If  the  disappearance  of  Atlantis  be  no  fiction,  but  a  fact, 
is  it  not  a  fact  far  more  significant  for  humanity  than 
any  State  formation  to  which  history  devotes  volumes 
— nay,  libraries?  Has  not  the  separation  of  England 
from  the  mainland,  established  by  geology,  had  far 
greater  political  consequences  than  the  Norman  Inva- 
sion under  William  the  Conqueror — consequences  that 
at  the  close  of  thousands  of  years  are  far  from  being 
exhausted?  The  Great  Flood  recorded  in  the  history 
of  nearly  every  people,  the  earthquakes  that  destroyed 
Lisbon  in  1755,  San  Francisco  in  1903,  the  fires  that 
laid  London  in  ashes  in  1666,  Chicago  in  1874,  have 
been  far  more  destructive  of  human  life  than  most  of 
the  sieges,  battles,  and  campaigns  described  at  such 
length  in  history. 

There  is  no  historical  justification  for  any  such  an- 
tithesis of  intellectual  and  natural  forces,  of  human  will 
and  chance.  Any  line  of  distinction  must  be  arbitrary, 
any  separation  artificial.  The  boundary  between  his- 
tory and  the  philosophy  of  history  is  crossed  when  any 
attempt  is  made  to  select  among  the  forces  which  have 
determined,  and  do  still  determine,  human  destiny,  one 
which  is  regarded  as  essential,  and  to  neglect  the  rest. 
History  aims  at  the  description  of  events ;  the  philosophy 
of  history  claims  to  understand  their  causal  connection 


18       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

and  their  meaning.  No  sound  conclusions  can  be 
reached  by  a  dualistic  philosophy  of  history  which  re- 
fuses to  recognize  the  same  natural  forces  and  laws  at 
work  everywhere,  causing  islands  and  whole  continents 
to  disappear  beneath  or  rise  above  the  ocean,  and  calling 
forth  individual  men  to  be  conquerors  and  lawgivers, 
to  mould  and  model  nations,  or  which  turns  away  its 
gaze  from  the  irrational  accidents  of  lifeless  matter  and 
closes  its  eyes  to  all  but  spiritual  forces.1  Who  can  say 
what  would  have  happened  if  the  Armada  had  con- 
quered England?  Europe,  at  any  rate,  would  not  have 
been  what  it  is  to-day;  and  the  cause  of  the  difference 
between  what  it  is  to-day  and  what  it  might  have  been 
is  surely  the  storm  that  destroyed  the  Armada — a  mere 
accident,  a  blind  natural  force  that  could  by  no  stretch 
of  language  be  described  as  spiritual  or  moral.  How 
would  history  have  developed  supposing  that  Grouchy 
had  marched  on  Waterloo,  and  so  decided  the  battle, 
which  after  midday  stood  even,  in  Napoleon's  favour? 
Was  it  blind  chance  or  Grouchy's  will  that  decided  it 
otherwise? 

It  is  impossible,  when  looking  at  the  course  of  his- 
tory, to  distinguish  what  is  due  to  the  influence  of 
natural  events  and  what  to  that  of  human  will,  unless  we 
wilfully  and  without  any  rational  justification  leave 
aside  or  neglect  one  whole  aspect  of  things.  The  naive 
chronicler  may  be  open  to  the  charge  of  artlessly  string- 

1  Georg  Simmel,  "  Problems  of  the  Philosophy  of  History,"  Leip- 
zig, 1892,  p.  1:  "If  history  is  to  be  more  than  a  puppet-show,  it 
must  record  psychic  processes."  Yes,  but  does  Simmel  prove  that  we 
are  not  the  puppets  of  the  forces  at  work  in  nature?  He  assumes 
that  which  has  to  be  proved — namely,  that  man  makes  his  history, 
instead  of  its  being  made  by  nature  through  him. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    i^ 

ing  together,  after  the  manner  of  a  gossiping  village 
barber,  odd  fragments  of  information  that  mean  nothing 
to  the  reader  of  another  age  or  place.  At  the  same  time 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  pretentious  historian, 
who  presents  the  results  of  his  critical  research  as  a  con- 
tribution to  science,  and  considers  his  style  like  an  artist, 
does,  by  the  very  fact  of  selection,  introduce  into  his  mat- 
ter a  philosophical  tendency  which  belongs  to  him,  and 
not  to  it.  The  objection  to  Zola's  theory  of  naturalism 
in  fiction  is  valid  against  the  writer  who  selects  the 
human  will  as  the  only  motive-power  of  importance  in 
history.  Zola  claimed  to  give  a  complete  representation 
of  actual  life  as  it  is.  It  was  pointed  out  that,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  he  selected  by  subjective  inclination,  with 
reference  to  an  end  subjectively  conceived,  a  few  aspects 
of  actuality,  which  he  then  linked  together  as  it  suited 
him,  and  interpreted  in  accordance  with  his  own  idea. 
Thus,  history  at  the  moment  when  it  thinks  itself  most 
objective  is  merely  naturalistic  fiction,  merely  "  history 
through  the  medium  of  a  temperament,"1  with  the  hand- 
icap that  the  action  of  temperament  in  altering  and 
blurring  lines  is  far  more  fatal  on  the  complicated  and 

1  This  passage  had  long  been  written  when  the  same  idea  wa3 
expressed,  almost  in  the  same  words,  by  Professor  Gabriel  Monod, 
in  an  address  which  he  gave  on  the  occasion  of  his  forty  years' 
jubilee  as  teacher  of  history  at  the  Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes  in 
Paris,  May  26,  1907.  "  Zola,"  he  said,  "  has  defined  Art  as  Nature 
through  the  medium  of  a  temperament.  .  .  .  We  see  historical  actu- 
ality through  a  temperament  also.  We  study  it  as  history.  But  if  we 
wish  to  re-animate  it,  a  personal  creative  effort  is  necessary  in  the 
representation,  and  the  reinforcement  of  science  by  art.  Historical 
actuality  is  never  known  to  us  in  all  the  complexity  of  its  exact  and 
unconditional  truth.  ...  It  is  a  dream-face."  The  correspondence 
ii  so  remarkable  as  to  be  worth  noting.^ 


20       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

crowded  canvas  of  history  than  in  the  simple  portraiture 
of  the  novelist. 

History  is  not  a  descriptive  science,  because  it  has  no 
means  by  which  phenomena  can  be  immediately  per- 
ceived or  objectively  determined.  Far  less,  when  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  for  it  to  foretell  a  single  event  with 
even  approximate  certainty,  can  it  be  called  an  exact 
science,  of  which  the  distinguishing  mark  is  precisely 
this  power  to  determine  beforehand  what  under  certain 
conditions  must  happen.  It  is  driven  on  to  seek  to  know 
the  laws  of  which  phenomena  are  the  manifestation — 
immutable  laws,  the  same  to-day,  to-morrow,  yesterday.1 
Froude  2  held  that  history  cannot  foretell  events  that 
depend  upon  the  will  of  man,  because  that  will  is  free. 
But  this  freedom  of  the  will  is  a  dogma  incapable  of 
proof.  The  law  of  causality  which  governs  our  thought 
admits  of  no  metaphysical  vagueness.  It  compels  us  to 
assume  that  the  will,  a  force  that  initiates  movement,  is, 
like  every  other  force,  subject  to  that  law.    Its  apparent 

1  Hume  (sect.  2,  part  ii.)  demands  an  eschatology  of  all  sciences. 
St.  Simon  also  remarks  that  it  is  the  task  of  all  sciences  "  to  see 
in  order  to  foresee"  (voir,  pour  prevoir),  and  Condorcet  felt  this  so 
strongly  that,  in  the  last  book  of  his  "  Esquisse  d'un  Tableau  His- 
torique  du  Progres  de  l'Esprit  Humain,"  he  boldly  attempts  to  fore- 
cast future  history,  declaring:  "If  man  can  almost  confidently  fore- 
tell natural  phenomena,  as  soon  as  he  knows  their  laws  .  .  .  why 
should  it  appear  chimerical  to  represent  the  probable  destiny  of 
the  human  race  side  by  side  with  historical  results?"  P.  S.  L. 
Buchez  ("Introduction  a  la  Science  de  l'Histoire,"  second  edition, 
Paris,  1812,  book  i.,  chap,  ii.)  maintains  with  Condorcet  that  history 
can  foresee  and  foretell,  and  is  thus  a  science.  What  a  pity  that 
he  was  so  modest  as  to  refrain  from  foreseeing  and  foretelling  a 
single  event! 

*  James  Anthony  Froude,  "  Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects,"  Lon- 
don, 1867,  vol.  i.,  p.  11. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    21 

freedom  is  an  illusion,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  mind  does 
not  perceive  the  relation  between  the  stimulus  to  an  act 
of  will  and  the  resultant  operation  of  the  will.  Each  act 
of  will  is  the  one  possible  response  of  a  given  organism 
to  a  given  stimulus  under  given  conditions.  A  difference 
in  one  element  in  the  system,  a  different  constitution  of 
the  organism,  a  different  kind  of  strength  of  stimulus,  or 
its  application  under  different  circumstances,  will  cause 
the  response  of  the  will  to  be  different,  but  nothing  else 
can  alter  it.  Conversely,  the  elements  are  not  the  result 
of  chance  or  arbitrary  attraction;  they  are  links  in  the 
iron  chain  of  cause  and  effect  that  extends  into  infinity, 
above  and  below  the  limits  of  our  knowledge.  Deny 
this,  and  you  deny  causality,  and  declare  that  the  planets 
are  not  strictly  determined  in  their  course  by  mechanical 
necessity,  but  can  move  at  will  in  or  out  of  their  ap- 
pointed track.  The  thoughts  and  actions  of  men  are 
regulated  by  the  same  compulsion  that  keeps  the  stars  in 
their  course,  and  were  history  a  science  like  astronomy, 
even  though  the  behaviour  of  the  elements  might  re- 
main hidden,  it  would  at  least  be  able  to  foretell  the 
actions  of  men  and  that  part  of  history  which  depends 
upon  the  operation  of  human  will,  just  as  astronomy  is 
able  to  foretell  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 

An  historian  who  confines  himself  to  the  sober  speech 
of  fact,  and  restrains  his  "  seething  brain  "  and  his  "  eye 
in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling,"  can  only  venture  upon  prophe- 
cies so  general  and  so  much  of  the  nature  of  platitudes 
that  they  rouse  no  interest  at  all.  It  is  safe  to  foretell 
that  no  human  institution  can  last  for  ever,  that  every 
State,  every  society,  every  law,  every  custom,  must  in 
time  alter  or  disappear.    We  all'know  or  guess  so  much. 


22        THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

History  cannot  give  us  even  the  smallest  reliable  indica- 
tion as  to  the  things  about  which  we  should  really  like  to 
know — namely,  when  and  how  the  existing  order  is  to 
terminate,  and  what  is  to  take  its  place.  Any  would-be 
astrologer  or  cheiromant  who  had  nothing  more  to  tell 
those  who  came  to  him  to  have  the  veil  of  the  future 
withdrawn  than  that  they  must  one  day  die,  would  soon 
be  labelled  ass  or  knave  by  the  most  credulous  of  his 
clients.  In  one  word,  nothing  can  be  foretold  of  the 
course  of  human  life,  whether  of  individuals,  groups,  or 
communities,  beyond  the  universal  law  of  elementary 
biological  necessity,  to  which  no  exception  is  known — the 
law  which  is  itself  only  a  particular  instance  of  the  com- 
plex interrelation  and  interaction  of  biological  and  cos- 
mic laws  whose  concrete  operations  we  are  completely 
unable  to  forecast,  ignorant  as  we  are  of  the  extent  and 
action  of  the  forces  at  work  in  human  life.  The  his- 
torian has  been  paradoxically  described  as  the  prophet  of 
the  past.  It  is  one  of  those  phrases  that  suggest  meaning 
without  really  conveying  any.  If  it  does  mean  anything, 
it  can  only  be  this:  the  historian  is  no  man  of  science, 
but  a  seer  who  guesses  or  divines,  not  the  future,  but  the 
past,  and  if  you  don't  believe  him,  down  with  your  shil- 
ling. 

History  may  have  no  scientific  value,  though  it  is  said 
to  be  a  means  of  education :  historia  magistra  vita. 
Even  this  claim  cannot  be  substantiated.  Written  his- 
tory does  not  touch  the  realities  of  history;  it  hardly 
even  skims  over  its  extreme  surface.  It  can  only  search, 
guess,  surmise.  But  without  accurate  knowledge  there 
can  be  no  useful  instruction.  Moreover,  the  information 
conveyed,  even  if  accurate,  could  be  of  no  use  to  those 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    23 

who  have  new  actions  before  them.  Every  moment  in 
history  is  the  result  of  a  relation  between  the  forces  in 
operation  and  the  general  conditions  under  which  they 
operate,  and  the  combination  can  never  be  either  re- 
peated or  modified.  Therefore,  it  is  of  no  assistance  to  a 
man  living  now  to  know  how  certain  people  acted  under 
given  circumstances  in  the  past.  The  circumstances  are 
not  the  same ;  and  even  if  he  wished  to  imitate  the  action, 
he  could  not.  Were  he  to  make  some  clumsy  attempt, 
the  result  would  not  be  identical.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
no  single  person  or  group  of  persons  has  ever  allowed 
their  action  to  be  determined  by  historical  precedent.  In 
forming  a  resolution,  the  determining  factor  is  the  neces- 
sity of  the  present,  not  the  experience  of  the  past.  The 
only  way  in  which  more  or  less  accurate  historical  knowl- 
edge does  operate  is  seen  in  the  case  where  one  genera- 
tion transmits  to  another  a  prejudice,  an  attraction  or 
repulsion,  a  confidence  or  mistrust,  an  appreciation  or 
depreciation,  that  may  have  originally  been  sound,  and 
has  not  been  discovered  by  the  descendant  to  be  so  no 
longer.  In  this  case  knowledge  in  the  ancestor  creates 
ignorance  in  the  descendant,  and  gives  rise  to  conclusions 
that  are  false,  because  based  on  premises  no  longer  ac- 
curate. The  great  conquerors,  rulers,  and  law  givers 
have  never  possessed  what  is  called  the  historical  sense : 
that  they  had  it  not  was  the  condition  of  their  success. 
Their  eyes,  troubled  by  no  visions  of  the  past,  were  fixed 
on  the  visible  present.  With  no  thought  for  what  had 
stirred  the  men  of  bygone  days,  they  saw  the  needs  and 
opportunities  of  the  present.  History  was  never  their 
teacher. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  mass  of  mankind  have  no  real 


24        THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

— no  organic,  if  I  may  use  the  word — interest  in  his- 
torical narrative  or  in  history  itself.  They  have  a  deep- 
seated  impulse  to  observe,  to  study,  and  as  far  as  possible 
to  understand  nature,  to  use  all  their  available  knowl- 
edge to  interpret  her.  Long  before  they  have  consciously 
reflected,  they  are  dimly  aware  that  knowledge  is  their 
best  weapon,  both  of  attack  and  defence,  in  the  life-and- 
death  struggle  they  have  to  wage  with  her;  that  the 
wages  of  ignorance  here  are  death,  and  the  rewards  of 
every  advance  in  knowledge  are  greater  security,  a  longer 
tenure,  and  better  conditions  of  existence.  They  cherish 
such  cognizance  as  they  have  won,  and  transmit  it  as 
their  most  precious  possession  to  their  descendants.  The 
mystic  tales  of  forgotten  secrets  possessed  by  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  Chaldees,  Indians,  and  Aztecs,  represent,  no 
doubt,  some  branch  of  nature  knowledge  acquired  at  one 
time  and  again  lost.  The  play  of  nature's  mighty  forces, 
the  phenomena  revealed  once  or  periodically  in  a  per- 
plexing whirl  of  movement,  rouse  in  man  an  excitement 
that  lasts  from  childhood  to  old  age,  a  noble  curiosity 
that  compels  all  save  the  weak  in  intellect,  the  man  who 
is  a  morbid  exception,  to  gaze  and  to  try  to  understand. 
No  such  instinctive  desire  for  knowledge  exists  in  the 
case  of  his  own  past.  The  vast  majority  even  of  edu- 
cated people  are  completely  indifferent  to  it.  They  never 
think  of  it.  They  are  at  no  pains  to  remember  it.  If 
they  consulted  their  personal  inclinations,  they  would 
never  either  burden  their  own  memories  with  it,  or  as- 
sign any  importance  to  burdening  the  memories  of  their 
descendants. 

Every  now  and  then  the  papers  contain  the  results  of 
the  examination  of  soldiers  in  history;  and  they  invari- 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    25 

ably  prove  that  people  are  either  completely  ignorant, 
even  of  quite  recent  events,  or  that  they  have  a  ridicu- 
lously false  conception  of  them.  Italians  of  this  gen- 
eration know  neither  Cavour  nor  Garibaldi.1  Germans 
have  never  heard  the  name  of  Moltke  or  Roon,  think 
that  Bismarck  was  a  great  ruler  or  general,  and  are  ab- 
solutely ignorant  of  the  war  of  1870.  Frenchmen  know 
nothing  of  Gambetta  or  Thiers,  of  Sedan,  or  the  revolu- 
tion that  followed  it,  and  believe  the  most  mythical  and 
ridiculous  stories  about  Napoleon.2  And  these  are 
mostly  young  persons  who  have  learned  at  least  to  read 
and  write  in  their  passage  through  the  elementary 
scHool,  and  could  very  easily  instruct  themselves  in  any 
subject  that  they  found  attractive  or  interesting.  Ex- 
perience proves  that  the  very  greatest  historical  event 
retains  a  real  and  vivid  place  in  human  memory  only  so 
long  as  there  are  men  living  who  took  part  in  it,  who 
were  personally  affected  by  it,  who  watched  it  with  keen 
interest  and  excitement  themselves,  or  who  have  heard 
tell  of  it  from  someone  who  himself  took  part  in  or  wit- 
nessed it — men,  in  a  word,  to  whom  the  event  was  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  part  of  their  own  experience.  This 
applies  to  all  great  events,  and  limits  their  remembrance 
to  three  generations  at  the  most — contemporaries,  their 
children,  who  catch  from  the  lips  of  their  parents  some- 
thing of  the  force  and  freshness  that  belongs  to  the  sight 
of  one's  own  eyes,  and  perhaps  the  third  generation, 

1  Paola  Lombroso,  "  Mario  Carrara,  Nella  Pcnombra  della  Civilta 
(Da  un'  inchiesta  sul  pensiero  del  popolo),"  Torino,  1906,  pp.  47 
et  seg. 

1  Roland,  "  L'Education  Patriotique  du  Soldat,"  Paris,  1908, 
passim. 


26       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

who  may,  if  they  are  lucky,  hear  the  story  at  the  family 
board  of  "  I  have  heard  my  father  tell  .  .  ."  But  the 
tale  loses  so  much  of  its  colour  in  this  second  relation 
that  the  impression  it  makes  on  the  hearer  is  slight — too 
slight  to  impel  him  to  transmit  it  to  his  children  in  his 
turn.  The  limitation  of  remembrance  to  three  genera- 
tions is,  in  fact,  a  law  based  upon  the  actual  processes 
of  memory.  Under  normal  healthy  conditions  only  a 
revival  of  the  associations  or  emotions  that  originally  ac- 
companied an  impression  will  call  it  up  again  to  the 
surface  of  consciousness.  As  a  rule  however,  strong 
emotion  is  only  aroused  and  a  chain  of  associations  set 
going,  by  the  immediate  individual  sense-stimulus  and 
prompt  reaction  of  consciousness  and  will  that  is  present 
in  a  personal  experience;  no  such  effect  is  produced  by 
the  mere  hearing  and  reading  of  words,  which  as  often 
as  not  fail  to  suggest  to  the  average  dull  and  lethargic 
intelligence  the  ideas  into  which  they  require  to  be  trans- 
lated. The  account  of  a  past  event  with  no  immediate 
practical  bearing  awakens  no  emotion,  starts  no  manifold 
and  diversified  chain  of  associations:  a  more  or  less 
isolated  fact  in  consciousness,  it  is  soon  forgotten,  and 
has  little  prospect  of  ever  being  revived  again  in  the  form 
of  a  recollection. 

The  law  of  three  generations  applies  to  events  con- 
nected with  a  place,  a  tribe,  or  a  species,  and  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  family  also,  which  should  be  of  the  first  and 
greatest  interest  to  men  of  any  degree  of  intellectual 
development.  Civilized  man — savages  can  for  the 
moment  be  left  out  of  account — normally  knows  nothing 
of  his  ancestors  farther  back  than  his  grandparents. 
Beyond  three  generations  all  is  obscurity,  even  under 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    27 

the  most  favourable  circumstances,  when  a  family  has 
remained  fixed  in  one  spot,  has  lived  and  moved  and  had 
its  being  in  the  same  surroundings,  and  might  find  in  the 
unchanging  names  of  everything  around  it,  whether  the 
work  of  man  or  nature,  in  the  buildings  and  the  country- 
side, so  many  mnemonic  aids  to  memory.  If  the  family 
change  its  dwelling,  even  a  recent  past  will  vanish  more 
quickly  and  completely  with  the  disappearance  of  the 
landmarks  and  images  that  to  some  extent  helped  to 
keep  it  alive.  At  the  best,  an  uncertain,  wavering 
legend,  with  no  distinct  features,  is  all  that  then  remains 
of  .the  ancestral  story.  On  the  journey  of  life,  man 
travels  within  a  little  circle  of  light  that  is  extinguished 
with  him,  and  leaves  no  trace  behind  it  save  a  dazzling 
of  the  eyes  of  some  fellow-traveller.  Outside  this  circle 
all  is  eternal  darkness,  broken  only  here  and  there  by 
scattered  sparks^ — a  darkness  that  few  care  to  try  to 
illuminate. 

To  this  stern  law  of  oblivion  an  exception  seems  to  be 
afforded  by  certain  great  festival  days  in  commemoration 
of  important  historical  events  yearly  celebrated  after 
thousands  of  years  by  the  whole  population  of  a  locality 
or  country.  Rome  still  keeps  as  a  festal  day  April  2 1,  on 
which  day  it  is  naively  assumed  that  the  city  was  founded 
2,660  years  ago  (753  B.C.).  For  four  and  a  half  cen- 
turies Basle  has  celebrated  St.  James's  Day  (August 
26) ;  every  9th  of  May  Orleans  recalls  its  deliverance 
from  the  English  besiegers  by  Joan  of  Arc  ( 1429)  ;  and 
England  remembers  on  November  5  the  failure  of  Guy 
Fawkes'  Gunpowder  Plot,  etc.  But  such  remembrance 
is  an  illusion.  The  populace  celebrate  a  festival  without 
thinking  much  of  its  origin.    Out  of  thousands  of  Eng- 


28        THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

lish  boys  who  dance  round  Guy  Fawkes'  bonfire,  hardly  a 
hundred  know  anything  about  him.    They  sing  away — 

"  Remember,  remember 
The  fifth  of  November," 

but  would  be  hard  put  to  it  to  explain  why  the  day 
should  be  remembered.  In  the  course  of  the  last  century 
the  custom  has  grown  of  establishing  State  celebrations 
on  historical  days,  in  which  the  population,  willy-nilly, 
must  take  part,  since  the  law  prescribes  it,  and  it  is 
done  by  all  public  offices  and  institutions.  In  Germany 
there  is  Sedan  Day,  in  France  July  14,  in  Italy  Constitu- 
tion Day,  etc.  But,  recent  as  is  the  establishment  of 
most  of  these  celebrations,  their  origins  are  already 
becoming  dim.  In  the  schools,  teachers  impress  the 
significance  of  Sedan  Day  upon  the  minds  of  their  pupils 
by  the  writing  of  essays;  and  not  without  reason,  for 
there  are  plenty  of  grown-up  people  to  whom  the  name 
of  Sedan  conveys  very  little  distinct  meaning.  Few  of 
the  countless  multitudes  who  conscientiously  celebrate 
the  French  national  festal  day,  drink,  dance,  and  enjoy 
the  fireworks  and  illuminations,  know  anything  about  the 
storming  of  the  Bastille;  and  there  are  numbers  of 
Italians  to  whom  no  definite  idea  is  suggested  by  "  lo 
Statuto."  The  masses  enjoy  the  jollification:  they  like 
to  have  it  organized  and  patronized  by  the  classes.  The 
occasion  matters  little:  to  them  the  carnival,  the  satur- 
nalia, is  the  thing.  What  appears  to  the  cultured 
minority  as  a  historical  reminder  is  to  the  majority,  in 
spite  of  their  board-school  education,  no  different  from 
any  other  spiritual  or  temporal  holiday.    It  is  in  records, 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    29 

and  not  in  the  consciousness  of  man,  that  the  historical 
part  is  preserved.  Only  in  this  sense  is  there  a  grain  of 
truth  in  that  arrogant  assertion  that  "  History  is  that 
portion  of  the  world's  story  which  is  established  by  tradi- 
tion, and  recorded  in  written  history."  History  goes  on, 
whether  recorded  or  no ;  whether  its  recollection  by  man 
is  artificially  preserved  or  allowed  to  fall  into  natural 
oblivion.  Such  knowledge  as  we  possess  is  due  solely  to 
those  witnesses  of  events  who,  instead  of  relying  solely 
upon  oral  transmission,  have  preserved  their  experiences 
by  writing  and  other  arts.  Without  such  aid  the  most 
civrlized  nations,  who  have  attained  the  highest  intel- 
lectual and  scientific  development,  would  remember  as 
little  of  their  own  history  as  the  rude  barbarians,  from 
whom  even  the  immediate  past  is  shrouded  in  impene- 
trable darkness. 

The  almost  organic  indifference  of  mankind  to  the 
past,  to  whatever  lies  outside  the  range  of  their  imme- 
diate sense  perception  and  apprehension,  is  an  observed 
fact  that  it  is  vain  to  attempt  to  argue  away.  It  seems, 
however,  to  be  contradicted  by  the  equally  incontrover- 
tible fact  of  the  existence  of  history  in  a  highly  developed 
form,  regarded  as  a  necessary  element  in  a  cultured  edu- 
cation, and  claiming  the  attention  of  governments,  so- 
cieties, and  countless  individuals  in  the  investigation  and 
preservation  of  the  recorded  past.  The  contradiction  is 
more  apparent  than  real.  A  knowledge  of  history,  un- 
like that  of  Nature  and  her  laws,  is  not  a  biological  ne- 
cessity: it  is  a  psychological,  and,  above  all,  a  sociologi- 
cal need. 

The  individual,  psychological  basis  upon  which  the 
origin  and  continued  development  of  history  rests  is  two- 


30       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

fold,  depending  on  two  fundamental  human  attributes — 
curiosity  and  self-love. 

The  origin  of  curiosity  is  the  demand  of  the  nerve- 
centres  for  impressions  that  must  of  necessity  proceed 
from  the  external  world.  This  demand,  at  first  instinct- 
ive and  accompanied  in  its  satisfaction  by  a  certain 
pleasure,  acquires  pari  passu  with  the  development  of  the 
organism  the  element  of  purpose :  the  impressions  to  be 
received  from  the  external  world  must  be  such  as  antici- 
pate danger,  and  assist  in  the  provision  of  nourishment 
and  other  gratifications.  In  the  struggle  for  existence 
active  curiosity  is  an  advantage  to  the  individual:  it  is 
the  way  of  enlightenment.  As  differentiation  advances, 
curiosity,  which  was  directed  to  the  mediately  or  imme- 
diately practical  needs  of  the  individual,  forgets  its 
origin  in  the  functional  requirements  of  the  nerve- 
centres,  and  its  purpose  as  alleviating  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  becomes  that  desire  to  know  which,  ap- 
parently severed  from  all  selfish  aims,  strives  solely  for 
the  attainment  of  new  knowledge  and  the  comprehension 
of  the  world  of  phenomena  presented  to  its  view.1  And 
the  individual  whose  curiosity  has  thus  risen  to  the  desire 

"Hermann  Lotze  ("Microcosm:  Idea  of  a  Natural  History  and 
History  of  Mankind:  an  Anthropological  Essay,"  Leipzig,  1864,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  3)  is  well  aware  of  the  meaning  of  curiosity,  and  continues 
that  it  is  quite  wrong  to  speak  contemptuously  of  the  "  restlessness 
of  vulgar  curiosity,"  which,  "  without  any  sense  of  the  different  im- 
portance of  different  questions,  tries  to  invent  a  history  of  the 
origin  of  every  fact  of  experience,  great  or  small."  But  he  relapses 
into  his  usual  mysticism  when  he  goes  on:  "Yet  it  is  from  this  vulgar 
curiosity  that  there  was  developed  the  profound  longing  to  see  this 
riddle  of  the  universe,  which  is  the  history  of  the  earth,  emerge 
wholly  from  the  higher  world,  and  return  thither  when  it  has  com- 
pleted the  task  for  which  it  was  sent  forth." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    31 

to  know  is  made  uncomfortable  and  uneasy  by  every  gap 
in  his  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  before  him  and  of 
their  causal  connection.  Just  as  a  wild  beast  is  terrified 
by  a  dark  cavern  difficult  of  access  in  his  hunting- 
ground,  and  regards  it  as  a  mysterious  danger  until  he 
has  gathered  the  courage  to  penetrate  to  its  depths,  so 
man  cannot  rest  until  he  fills  up  his  gaps  with  solid 
masonry  or  hides  them  behind  some  painted  screen.  To 
the  individual  who  has  once  risen  to  the  desire  to  know, 
the  darkness  of  the  past  is  as  troubling  as  that  of  the 
future,  and  the  question  of  remote  causes  as  torturing  as 
that  of  those  near  at  hand.  In  this  desire  to  know  and  to 
understand  lies  the  origin  of  all  sciences,  and  of  all  super- 
stitions and  other  systems  of  self-deception  and  false 
guesses.  Philosophic  speculation,  seeking  to  find  the  final 
cause,  resolved  itself  for  most  men  into  the  theological 
revelation  which  reveals  nothing  to  the  understanding. 
The  theory  of  knowledge  investigates  the  contents  of  our 
consciousness  reduced  to  their  simplest  terms,  and  en- 
deavors to  discover  their  origin.  Prophecy,  magic,  and 
the  other  black  arts  that  strive  to  penetrate  the  darkness 
of  the  future,  seemed  for  long  to  the  keenest  and  most 
mature  intellects  of  the  race  to  represent  the  brightest 
branch  of  human  knowledge.1     It  is  only  necessary  to 

*  R.  Campbell  Thompson,  "  Late  Babylonian  Letters,"  London, 
1907.  Letter  of  the  King  of  Assyria  to  Saduna,  in  Borsippe.  He 
advises  him  especially  to  take  possession  of  the  clay  tablets  in 
the  temple  at  Ezidda,  with  war  prophecies  inscribed  on  them:  "If 
there  be  any  charm  I  have  not  taught  thee,  and  thou  shouldst  hear 
of  it,  search  it  out,  and  take  and  send  to  me."  The  importance  at- 
tributed to  the  Sibylline  books  in  Rome  may  be  recalled.  Compare 
also  vEschylus,  "Prometheus  Vinctus,"  vers.  500  et  seq.,  where 
Prometheus,   citing   the   benefits   he   has   conferred   on   man,   mentions 


32       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

recall  the  importance  attached  by  Romans  and  Etruscans 
to  the  omens  from  the  flight  of  birds  and  the  inspection 
of  their  entrails  in  all  State  and  religious  observances; 
and  in  the  East  to  the  interpretation  of  dreams  down  to 
much  more  recent  times.  But  the  very  eagerness  of  their 
desire  to  obtain  foreknowledge  of  the  future  led  men  to 
subject  the  results  of  the  would-be  art  of  prophecy  to 
such  a  severe  examination  as  soon  showed  them  to  be 
mere  twaddle,  without  so  much  as  a  kernel  of  truth. 
Cicero  tells  us  that,  late  in  antiquity,  the  augur,  or  harus- 
pex,  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  comic  figure. 
Thoughtful  men  sadly  admitted  that  means  for  the  re- 
liable investigation  of  the  future  did  not  exist,  and  that 
this  search,  like  that  for  the  final  cause,  must  be  regret- 
fully abandoned.  Thus,  only  the  intellectually  backward 
and  absolutely  uneducated  sections  of  the  populace  con- 
tinued to  believe  in  the  primitive  forms  of  revelation  by 
lines  on  the  hand,  the  interpretation  of  dreams,  laying 
out  of  cards,  astrology,  the  shapes  in  lead  or  coffee- 
grounds.  Yet  the  irresistible  desire  to  know  the  unknow- 
able lingers  among  the  educated  too.  It  is  seen  in  the 
tentative  eschatology  which  philosophy  has  even  yet  not 
wholly  renounced  and  in  the  delight  with  which  a  specu- 
lative forecast  like  Wells'  "  Anticipations  "  is  accepted 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people,  who  do  not  seem 
aware  that  the  reason  why  such  a  speculation  affords 
them  so  much  pleasure  is  simply  that  it  corresponds  ex- 

as  very  important  that  he  taught  him  to  interpret  dreams,  under- 
stand signs,  and  foretell  the  future  by  magic  arts: 

"  rpSwovs  T(  iroWobi  f^aviTK^s  iffToix^a. 
K&Kpiva  irp&roi  e£  dveipdrwv  of  XP^I 
wrap,  yevtvOai    KX^Sdyas  re  8v<TKplrovt 
iyvdipiff'  at)rotJ  ivodtovs  re  <rvp,j3&\ovs,"  etc. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    33 

actly  with  the  knowledge,  the  assumption,  the  intentions 
and  wishes  of  the  present  day,  and  in  so  far  is  a  repre- 
sentation, not  of  the  future,  but  of  the  present. 

The  light  which  was  turned  upon  the  future  also  threw 
its  weak  and  flickering  beams  across  the  darkness  of  the 
past.  The  practical  value  attaching  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  future  undoubtedly  led  men  to  busy  themselves  with 
it  before  they  turned  to  the  past.  Magicians  and  sooth- 
sayers existed  everywhere  long  before  chroniclers  and 
historians,  and  even  to  this  day  many  races  still  living  in 
a  state  of  primitive  barbarism,  who  care  little  or  nothing 
about  their  traditions,  are  deeply  interested  in  prophecy. 
But  the  desire  to  know  threw,  in  the  course  of  time,  a 
more  or  less  distinct  light  on  one  section  after  another  of 
the  whole  circle  of  darkness  around  us,  and  so  came  in 
turn  to  try  to  penetrate  the  unknown  sections  of  the 
past  as  it  had  tried  to  penetrate  the  future.  It  brooded 
over  the  questions  that  Milton  put  in  Adam's  mouth: 
"  How  came  I  thus,  how  here?  "  Imagination  laid  hold 
of  the  witnesses  to  the  past,  existing  in  the  shape  of  un- 
certain recollections,  confused  and  contradictory  tradi- 
tions; monuments,  such  as  buildings,  carvings,  tombs, 
furniture,  or,  in  later  times,  inscriptions,  coins,  and  rec- 
ords; and  uncritically  filled  up  all  the  gaps  by  the  ar- 
bitrary exercise  of  its  creative  faculty.  From  such 
materials  there  have  gradually  developed  connected 
narratives,  in  which  the  little  that  is  certain,  much  that 
is  probable,  and  far  more  that  is  only  possible  or  frankly 
invented,1  are  so  blended  and  welded  together  that  not 

,Wilhelm  v.  Humboldt  ("The  Task  of  the  Historian,"  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  Berlin,  for  the  years  1820-21, 
Berlin,    1822,    Historico-Philological     Section,    p.    305)     admits    this 


34       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

only  the  hearer,  but  even  the  relator,  ceases  to  be  aware 
of  the  different  parts  of  which  his  fable  is  composed,  or 
to  see  where  they  join.  The  critical  sense  is  very  slightly 
developed  in  the  majority  of  mankind.  They  have  not 
the  capacity,  and  hardly  the  wish,  to  distinguish  between 
truth  and  delusion.  Any  confident  assertion  they  accept 
without  asking  for  proofs  or  criticizing  their  soundness. 
No  assertion  is  ever  doubted,  mistrusted,  or  denied,  un- 
less it  either  happens  to  be  in  glaring  contradiction  to 
something  already  well  known  or  to  injure  someone's 
feelings  and  interests,  especially  in  the  latter  case ;  other- 
wise, so  long  as  it  contains  in  itself  no  inherent  impossi- 
bilities, it  is  accepted  at  once,  and  occupies  the  position 
in  consciousness  of  an  accepted  fact.  As  theology  taught 
men  the  final  causes  in  the  universe,  and  soothsayers 
explained  the  secrets  of  the  future  from  signs,  history 
solved  the  riddles  of  the  past.  Fundamentally  it  be- 
longs to  the  same  class  as  these  two;  its  means  are  as 
incapable  as  theirs  to  satisfy  man's  desire  for  knowledge. 
Even  now  the  great  majority  of  mankind  unhesitatingly 
accept  the  teachings  of  theology  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
universe,  because,  since  they  have  no  particular  personal 
interest  in  not  being  deceived  as  to  final  causes,  beyond 
a  general  curiosity,  any  explanation  is  as  good  as  another. 
Most  men  of  any  power  of  thought  at  all  ceased  to 
believe  in  soothsayers  when  their  forecasts  did  not  come 
true.  But  the  fact  that  history  is  to  this  day  for  the 
most  part  just  as  much  in  the  air,  just  such  a  tissue  of 

almost  naively:  "The  past  is  only  partly  visible  in  the  world  of 
the  senses ;  part  must  be  felt,  resolved,  guessed  at.  .  .  .  It  may  seem 
questionable  to  allow  the  spheres  of  the  historian  and  the  poet  to 
touch  at  any  point.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  their  activities  are 
related." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    35 

guess-work,  intuition,  masked  wishes  and  desires  as 
theology  and  prophecy  is  concealed  from  all  save  a  very 
small  minority,  because  it  is  only  rarely  that  facts  appear 
which  definitely  prove  the  falsity  of  any  historical  nar- 
rative, and  because  it  is  practically  immaterial  to  the 
living  whether  the  past,  unchangeable  to  all  eternity,  is 
represented  in  one  way  or  another. 

If  information  about  final  causes  were  as  interesting 
to  man  as  that  about  immediate  ones,  theology  would 
long  ago  have  vanished  like  the  natural  history  of  Pliny, 
the  biology  of  Aristotle,  and  the  cosmology  of  Ptole- 
mseus.  If  information  about  the  past  were  as  important 
to  him  as  information  about  the  future,  they  would  long 
ago  have  seen  that  history  has  nothing  more  reliable  to 
tell  about  the  one  than  astrology  or  cheiromancy  about 
the  other,  and  that  the  historian  who  described  himself 
as  a  backward-looking  prophet  *  correctly  estimated  his 
own  credibility  as  about  equal  to  that  of  the  soothsayer 
who  pretends  to  reveal  the  future. 

Human  curiosity  demands  an  explanation  of  the  past, 
and  written  history  pretends  to  be  able  to  give  it.  Man- 
kind is  satisfied  with  the  connected  narrative  it  presents, 
because  they  have  no  reason  for  questioning  its  truth. 
It  pleases  them  first  because  it  satisfies  a  want,  then 
because  it  is  uncommonly  entertaining  and  exciting.  The 
love  of  stories  is  inborn  in  man.  He  delights  to  hear  of 
a  picturesque  and  melodramatic  past,  of  extraordinary 
events  to  which  common  experience  affords  no  parallel, 
and  the  deeds  and  destiny  of  unusual  men.  Historical 
narrative  is  full  of  tragedies,  dramas,  comedies  of  char- 

1  The    phrase    was    coined    by    Sainte-Beuve,    who    applied    it    to 
Bossuet.  v 


36        THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

acter  and  intrigue,  novels  of  adventure.  But  the  excite- 
ment that  it  arouses  is  purely  aesthetic,  and  not  essentially 
different  from  that  with  which  one  hears  or  reads  the 
"  Thousand  and  one  Nights."  It  only  differs  from 
admitted  fairy-tales  by  its  piquant  attempt  to  prove  that 
everything  did  actually  happen  as  it  is  set  down. 

Curiosity,  developing  into  the  desire  for  information 
and  knowledge,  is,  as  I  have  said,  one  origin  of  the  writ- 
ing of  history;  the  other  is  self-love.  Everyone  thinks 
his  doings  important,  and  his  experiences  worthy  of 
being  preserved.  Homer's  Nestor,  chanting  the  praises 
of  the  matchless  men  and  deeds  of  his  youth,  with  which 
the  young  generation  has  nothing  to  compare,  is  an 
eternal  human  type,  civilized  and  uncivilized,  primitive 
or  modern.  Man  loves  to  imagine  himself  performing 
prodigies  of  strength  and  courage :  he  would  fain  be 
represented  permanently  in  the  role  of  conquering  hero. 
This  attitude  flatters  his  self-esteem.  Moreover,  since 
a  warlike  exterior  has  always  enriched  its  possessor  with 
distinctions  and  privileges,  it  has  a  practical  utility  as 
well. 

The  savage  notches  or  smears  upon  his  arms  the 
number  of  enemies  he  has  slain.  The  Indian  paints  the 
combat  in  which  he  has  been  victorious  on  the  outside  of 
his  wigwam,  and  carries  the  scalps  of  the  vanquished  at 
his  belt,  while  the  custom  of  the  tribe  provides  strictly 
that  the  number  of  eagle-feathers  he  wears  when  in 
battle  array  is  no  more  than  that  of  the  warriors  he  has 
slain.  These  notches,  smears,  eagle-feathers,  scalps  and 
paintings  are  the  earliest  historical  records,  useless,  in- 
deed, for  the  community,  but  full  of  flattering  meaning 
for  him  whose  deeds  they  testify  and  keep  alive  in  the 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    37 

memories  of  contemporaries  and  those  who  come  after, 
and  of  value,  as  a  rule,  for  his  family  and  posterity. 
Fame  is  a  means  to  power  in  the  hands  of  lordlings  and 
tribal  chieftains.  They  maintain  their  authority  more 
easily,  and  without  the  necessity  of  resorting  to  com- 
pulsion, when  their  dependents  and  those  whom  they 
have  subdued  regard  them  with  admiration  and  fear. 
Hence  the  bards  retained  to  glorify  their  deeds  by  the 
Greeks  of  the  mythical,  heroic  age,  by  the  German  and 
Scandinavian  warrior  kings  and  the  Norman  conquerors. 
Official  history — history  written  with  a  purpose — is 
legitimately  descended  from  the  songs  invented  by  the 
hired  poets,  the  bards  and  skalds,  for  the  glorification  of 
the  heroic  deeds  of  their  master  and  his  forefathers; 
while  the  free-and-easy  school  of  historical  literature, 
that  does  not  trouble  about  tendencies,  and  is  sufficient  to 
itself,  in  so  far  as  it  exists  at  all,  derives  from  Herodotus 
and  the  pleasant  writers  of  his  school,  who  simply  re- 
corded remarkable  and  unusual  events. 

The  march  of  intellectual  development  deepens  our 
curiosity  into  the  desire  to  know  and  transforms  in- 
stinctive self-love  into  a  conscious  idea  of  the  underlying 
unity  of  all  individual  interests,  and  an  organized  at- 
tempt tXK  maintain  and  uphold  them  against  other 
conflicting  interests.  In  the  simple,  primitive  conditions 
of  savage  or  half-savage  tribes,  it  was  enough  for  the 
warrior  to  revel  in  the  recollection  of  his  exploits;  he 
would  create  a  flattering  impression  by  recounting  them 
to  his  comrades,  and  then  assist  their  memories  by 
mnemonic  images,  pictures,  and  signs,  and  the  more 
effective  medium  of  rhythmic  verse.  With  the  develop- 
ment of  the  horde  or  tribe  into  a  people  politically  or- 


38       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ganized  under  a  leader  or  clan,  claiming  and  ruthlessly 
exercising  prerogatives,  tradition  acquires  the  greatest 
practical  importance  for  those  in  possession.  In  so  far 
as  their  exceptional  position  at  the  head  of  the  com- 
munity is  the  result  of  some  exceptional  deed,  it  is  a 
matter  of  life  and  death  to  them  to  foster  remembrance 
of  this  deed,  and  use  it  to  rouse  in  the  imagination  of  the 
people  fear,  admiration,  superstitious  reverence — every 
sentiment,  in  a  word,  that  can  assist  to  maintain  and, 
where  possible,  to  increase  their  power.  The  earliest 
historical  records  are  inscriptions  and  carvings  on  the 
temples,  palaces,  fortresses  or  tombs  set  up  by  kings  to 
celebrate  their  victorious  wars  and  the  battles  they  have 
won,  the  towns  they  have  taken,  the  enemies  they  have 
captured  or  slaughtered,  the  people  subjugated  to  their 
sway,  the  riches  and  possessions  of  every  kind  they  have 
amassed.  The  historical  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  inscrip- 
tions we  possess  contain  little  else.  Who  had  a  natural 
interest  in  preserving  from  oblivion  the  facts  which  they 
commemorate  ?  Only  the  kings  whose  deeds  they  glorify 
and  the  descendants  who  inherited  their  power.  It  was 
matter  of  indifference,  even  of  advantage,  to  everyone 
else  that  any  recollection  of  them  should  fade  into  the 
obscurity  of  the  past. 

Conquerors,  warriors,  founders  of  dynasties,  and  the 
inheritors  of  their  power,  are  impelled  to  transmit  a 
knowledge  of  their  exploits  to  those  who  come  after  by 
means  of  every  kind  of  self-glorification  in  the  shape  of 
pictures,  inscriptions,  signs,  etc.,  from  the  same  motive 
which  induces  the  possessor  of  any  kind  of  privilege, 
great  or  small,  to  preserve  every  justification  of  it — 
preserve  or,  where  necessary,  create.    It  may  be  asserted 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY     39 

that  down  to  quite  recent  times  there  has  been  practically 
no  instance  where  a  record  has  been  authenticated  or 
set  up  from  the  disinterested  desire  for  knowledge  of 
important  events,  but  that  in  almost  every  case  the 
creation  and  establishment  of  the  record  was  due  the 
furtherance  of  some  private  interest.  Cloisters  and 
bishoprics  had  their  cartularies,  in  which  many  false 
entries  are  found  mixed  up  with  genuine  ones;  noble 
families  had  their  archives;  towns,  guilds,  and  corpora- 
tions their  charters  and  constitutions;  and  the  object  of 
all  these  parchments  and  papers  was  to  guard  the  privi- 
leges of  individuals  and  groups,  not  to  provide  material 
for  scientific  knowledge. 

Every  institution  arises  in  response  to  some  require- 
ment. Even  conquest,  organized  plunder,  the  murderous 
rule  of  a  King  of  Dahomey,  are  means  to  the  satisfaction 
of  a  powerful  personality  which  revels  in  unlimited 
dominion  and  destruction.  The  creators  of  institutions 
need  no  support  from  history.  Their  establishment 
depends  on  their  own  organic  necessities,  and  their  title 
on  their  will  and  power  to  act  in  accordance  with  these 
necessities.  But  the  necessities  change  and  alter;  the 
institutions  due  to  their  impetus  remain.  The  moment 
comes  when  they  have  not  the  strength  to  maintain 
themselves,  and  no  rational  arguments  are  forthcoming 
for  their  defence.  Then  those  to  whom  their  continued 
existence  is  profitable  call  upon  history  to  undertake  the 
task  of  frightening  off  criticism  and  discouraging  attacks, 
by  throwing  a  rampart  of  pompous  and  dignified  for- 
mulae round  the  structure  that  is  collapsing  from  internal 
weakness. 

•Goethe  has  summed  up  the -course  of  all  institutions 


/ 


4o       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

in  one  immortal  line,  Reason  turns  to  nonsense,  and 
benefit  to  nuisance";  and  Chateaubriand  expresses  the 
same  idea  when  he  says,  "  Every  institution  goes  through 
three  stages — utility,  privilege,  abuse."  When  the  day 
of  utility  is  over  the  uses  and  abuses  remain,  and,  if 
inconveniently  called  to  account  by  the  present,  point 
back  to  the  past  with  a  wealth  of  mysterious  sacerdo- 
talism. Examples  are  hardly  necessary;  one  may  suffice. 
The  nobility  was  originally — about  the  ninth  century — 
a  class  of  strong,  warlike  men,  who  maintained  order 
within  their  district,  and  defended  the  life  and  property 
of  the  people  resident  there  against  murder  and  robbery, 
demanding  in  return  unconditional  suzerainty  over  their 
subjects,  and  such  share  of  their  property  as  they  chose 
to  appropriate.1  Later,  a  single  sovereign,  the  king, 
undertook  the  maintenance  of  peace  at  home,  and  a 
standing  army,  police,  and  a  stable  constitutional  and 
legal  system  fulfilled  all  the  tasks  once  belonging  to  the 
nobility.  Though  thus  relieved  of  all  their  duties,  they 
nevertheless  gave  up  none  of  the  privileges  that  had  been 
won  by  their  ancestors  as  recompense  for  the  toils  and 
dangers  of  perpetual  conflict.  They  had  no  reply  when, 
on  the  eve  of  the  great  Revolution,  Beaumarchais,  in  the 
"  Marriage  of  Figaro,"  spat  in  their  faces  the  words, 
"Ye  took  the  trouble  to  be  born";  they  could  only 

1 H.  Taine,  "  Origines  de  la  France  Contemporaine:  L'Ancien 
Regime,"  Paris,  1887,  p.  10:  "In  any  case  the  noble  of  that  epoch  is 
the  brave,  the  strong  man,  expert  in  the  use  of  arms,  who  bares  his 
breast  at  the  head  of  a  company  instead  of  fleeing  and  paying  ran- 
som .  .  .  holds  his  ground,  and  protects  a  piece  of  land  with  his 
sword.  For  this  work  he  needs  no  ancestors;  he  only  needs  courage; 
he  is  an  ancestor  himself;  men  are  too  grateful  for  the  benefits  he 
confers  to  grumble  over  his  title." 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    41 

point  to  old  parchments  and  splendid  seals  for  their  title 
to  fatten  on  the  life-blood  of  the  people.  When  the 
French  peasantry  after  the  Revolution  stormed  the 
castles,  and  first  of  all  plundered  the  archives  and  burned 
the  records,  they  were  unconsciously  executing  a  sym- 
bolic act.  They  recognized  thereby  that  these  dis- 
coloured witnesses  of  a  dead  past  were  the  still  living 
roots  that  nourished  the  feudal  tree,  and  must  be  exter- 
minated before  it  could  be  destroyed. 

The  historical  sense  is  natural  in  all  those  who  profit 
by  respect  for  tradition;  in  others  it  is  the  artificial 
product  of  education  and  culture.  There  is  good  reason 
why  the  ruler  exercising  an  authority  created  by  the 
force  of  a  strong  ancestor,  a  nobility  possessing  riches, 
position,  and  power,  originating  in  a  more  or  less  remote 
past,  or  the  representatives  of  the  numerous  and  varied 
interests  that  gather  round  a  court  and  ruling  class, 
should  foster  and  glorify  the  recollection  of  their  origin, 
and  devote  an  honorable  branch  of  every  institution  to 
the  study  of  the  past.  It  is  to  their  advantage  to  do  so, 
and  they  have  the  means  to  impress  their  point  of  view 
upon  the  multitude,  for  whom  tradition  represents 
nothing  but  repression,  humiliation,  and  injury.  The 
ruling  classes  lay  down  the  course  of  instruction  to  be 
followed  in  schools,  the  conditions  of  examinations,  and 
the  official  position  of  different  branches  of  study;  chairs 
are  founded  by  them,  the  position  and  dignity  of 
academies  and  learned  societies  depend  on  them ;  salaries 
are  disbursed  by  them;  the  encouragement  and  endow- 
ment of  research  comes  from  them,  and  its  results  are 
rewarded  by  them  with  official  positions,  orders  and 
decorations;  and  they  have  it  thus   entirely  in  their 


42       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

power  to  raise  the  knowledge  of  history  to  the  most 
important  place  in  general  culture,  and  to  give  to  the 
writing  of  it  a  specially  high  rank  among  intellectual 
and  scientific  activities.  Moreover,  the  general  estima- 
tion of  the  worth  and  importance  of  any  branch  of 
knowledge  depends  primarily,  not  upon  its  value  as 
knowledge  or  its  utility  to  the  individual,  but  upon  the 
repute  in  which  it  is  held  in  the  State  and  society — that 
is  to  say,  among  those  who  have  the  power  and  the 
deciding  voice. 

Various  intellectual  elements  compose  this  artificially 
fostered  feeling  for  history.  First  there  is  the  effect  of 
the  patronage  of  the  ruling  class.  It  is  thought  to  be 
well-bred  to  imitate  their  views.  Then  there  is  the 
weakness  of  judgment  which  makes  people  incapable  of 
independent  or  rational  criticism,  and  the  intellectual 
laziness  which  finds  comfort  in  the  generally  accepted 
view.  It  follows  from  these  characteristics  of  human 
thought  that,  although  the  majority  may  obtain  no 
advantage  from  an  institution — may  even  suffer  from  it 
— they  will  feel  a  respect  for  its  antiquity,  and  look  upon 
its  remote  origin  as  sufficient  justification  for  its  con- 
tinued existence.  Moreover,  the  rebellious  spirits  of  the 
present  day,  who  have  everything  to  gain  by  having 
things  as  they  are,  reality,  weighed  in  the  balance,  com- 
pared and  estimated:  and  everything  to  lose  by  the 
preference  for,  and  exclusive  consideration  of,  what  is 
over  and  done  with,  what  never  really  has  been,  what  has 
been  created  by  recollection — these  men  are  actually 
proud  of  their  historical  sense,  of  caring  more  for  what 
has  been  than  for  what  is,  more  for  the  dead  than  the 
living,  and  would  be  ashamed  of  any  deficiency  in  it. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    43 

It  is  natural,  since  this  point  of  view  is  of  extraordinary 
utility  to  all  those  who  have  inherited  privileges,  that 
they  should  devote  every  effort  to  maintain  the  posses- 
sion of  historical  knowledge  to  be  an  advantage  and  a 
point  of  breeding,  and  declare  that  anyone  who  is  with- 
out it  must  be  incomplete,  debased,  possibly  weak  in  in- 
tellect, and  certainly  a  vulgarian. 

This  is  the  practical  significance  of  the  preoccupation 
with  the  past,  and  the  disproportionate  value  attached 
thereto.  It  would  be  one-sided,  however,  to  refuse  to 
recognize  the  strong  attraction  possessed  by  historical 
narrative  from  an  aesthetic  and  general  psychological 
point  of  view.  Its  stories  are  exciting  and  amusing. 
The  imagination  is  charmed  and  the  slumbering  mysti- 
cism inherent  in  the  human  mind  agreeably  stirred  by  a 
glimpse  into  the  misty  regions  of  the  distant  past.  We 
long  to  draw  aside  the  veil  from  what  is  partly  hidden, 
to  build  up  the  ruins,  to  call  up  the  spirits  that  are  buried, 
and  solve  the  riddles  that  clamour  for  solution.  Poetic 
dreams  are  wakened  in  us  by  the  mysterious  faces  that 
swim  before  us  out  of  the  dimness  of  the  past. 

Finally,  historic  narrative  has  the  charm  of  offering 
us  the  logical  satisfaction  of  a  clear  and  consistent  ex- 
planation of  many  institutions,  customs,  and  records  that 
are  incomprehensible  in  their  existing  form.  Much  that 
outrages  the  intelligence  to-day,  by  its  absurd  and  con- 
temptible injustice,  is  convincingly  explained  by  the 
discovery  of  its  origin  and  the  fact  that  it  then  was 
rational,  well  founded,  and,  if  not  abstractedly  just,  at 
least  suited  to  the  conditions  of  the  time.  Written 
history  is  a  zealous  and  eloquent  counsel  for  the  existing 
order,  and  secures  acquittal  or  a  judgment  of  extenuating 


44       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

circumstances  for  many  a  client  that  deserves  condemna- 
tion. The  advocate  does  not  even  imperil  his  success 
by  the  admission  that  his  defence  rests  on  the  dangerous 
ground  of  incomplete  information  as  to  fact,  arbitrary 
inventions,  and  uncritical  inferences  of  his  own.  All 
these  causes  explain  the  sedulous  attention  which  all  civ- 
ilized peoples  devote  to  historical  research  and  writing, 
in  spite  of  the  utter  worthlessness  of  history  as  a  guide 
to  life,  and  the  extremely  small  and  uncertain  informa- 
tion it  can  afford  of  the  near,  far  less  of  the  remote,  past. 

I  will  now  summarize  the  conclusions  I  hope  to  have 
established. 

History  is  not  identical  with  written  history,  and  is 
only  to  a  very  small  extent  included  within  it.  The 
claim  of  written  history  to  be  a  science  is  unfounded. 
It  is  not  a  descriptive  science,  since  it  is  not  certain  of 
the  facts  which  it  claims  to  collect  and  establish,1  nor 
a  pure  science,  since  it  knows  nothing  of  the  laws  that 
govern  the  causal  relations  of  the  events  of  human  life.2 
It  provides  us  with  no  knowledge.  It  does  not  assist 
the  adaptation  of  the  species  to  the  conditions  of  life 
given  by  nature.  It  affords  it  no  help  in  the  struggle 
for  existence.  Moreover,  it  corresponds  to  no  natural 
requirement  of  the  human  mind,  except,  perhaps,  the 

*  It  does,  of  course,  partly  know  the  cruder,  external  facts :  that 
battles  were  fought  at  Marathon,  on  the  Catalonian  plains,  at 
Lutzen,  and  at  Sadowa;  that  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  and  Napoleon 
have  lived,  etc.;  but  (P.  Lacombe,  op.  cit.,  p.  x)  "what  is  the  use  of 
mere  knowledge  of  bare  facts?  What  use  is  it  to  us  to  know  that 
...  a  Macedonian  called  Alexander  .  .  .  defeated  the  Persians  at 
such  and  such  a  place  .  .  .  without  deducing  some  truth  or  some 
feeling?" 

'  Georg  Simmel  {op.  cit.,  p.  43)  maintains  that  history  delineates 
"scientifically"   what   has    actually   happened    (it   cannot   do    so,    as 


HISTORY  AND  THE  WRITING  OF  HISTORY    45 

highly  general  desire  for  an  illumination  of  the  surround- 
ing darkness.  This  it  can  only  satisfy  formally,  for  the 
pictures  that  it  throws  upon  the  black  background  of 
the  past  are  not  aspects  of  reality,  but  projections  of 
subjective  ideas.  The  greatest  events,  even,  are  only  for 
three  generations  a  part  of  the  living  consciousness  of 
posterity  and  those  most  intimately  concerned  in  them. 
After  that  remembrance  is  only  preserved  in  books, 
which  are  a  dead-letter  to  the  great  majority;  or,  in  the 
case  of  less  civilized  peoples,  as  the  kernel  of  fantastic 
sagas,  which  are  preserved  by  the  tribe,  not  for  their 
truth,  but  for  their  charm  as  fairy-tales.  Nowadays  re- 
membrance is  probably  not  even  preserved  in  this  form. 
The  impulse  to  the  creation  of  folk-lore  dies  away  as  in- 
tellectual development  progresses,  and  memory  is  less 
relied  upon  when  the  habit  of  trusting  to  the  written 
word  grows  up.  The  high  favour,  nevertheless,  still 
enjoyed  by  written  history  rests  on  the  love  of  story- 
telling innate  in  mankind  and  the  intense  aesthetic  delight 
felt  in  stories  of  human  life,  adventure  tales,  and  anec- 
dotes, whether  true  or  invented.  The  historical  sense  is 
an  artificial  product  of  the  ruling  classes,  who  use  it  as  a 
means  for  investing  the  existing  order,  which  is  advan- 
tageous to  themselves  alone,  with  a  mystic  and  poetic 

I  have  shown),  but  does  not  need  "to  be  carried  to  the  point  of 
establishing  the  laws  governing  historical  events";  but  some 
pages  farther  on  (p.  53)  he  contradicts  himself  by  correctly  stating, 
"  There  would  be  no  history  did  we  not  see  a  meaning  behind 
the  external  event,  an  intention  behind  the  external  deed,  and  a 
sensation  behind  the  external  definition;  interpretation  alone  gives  it 
meaning."  But  the  interpretation  is  arbitrary  and  purely  subjective, 
the  opposite  of  scientific ;  thus  that  which,  even  according  to  Simmel, 
gives  rise  to  history  (more  correctly  to  written  history)  removes  its 
claim  to  be  a  science.  <■ 


46       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

charm,  for  beautifying  abuses  by  the  glorification  of  their 
origin,  and  for  casting  a  glamour  of  half-tender,  half- 
reverential  awe  over  institutions  that  have  long  lost  any 
reasonable  justification  and  become  useless  and  meaning- 
less. Its  practical  purpose,  in  a  word,  is  to  oppress  and 
deceive  the  present  with  the  assistance  of  the  past. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY 

It  is  only  at  a  very  early  stage  of  human  development 
that  the  desire  for  knowledge,  so  far  as  it  exists  at  all, 
is  confined  to  what  previously  existed ;  it  is  soon  extended 
to  the  why  and  the  how.  Men  are  no  longer  satisfied 
with  facts,  more  or  less  hidden,  more  or  less  credible; 
they  demand  to  understand  their  causal  connection. 
They  fight  against  the  conception  of  chance  as  the  motive 
force  in  the  universe,  and  strive  to  discover  some  deter- 
mining law  of  which  it  is  the  visible  expression.  Those 
who  related  the  story  of  the  past  were  conscious  of  this 
desire,  and  strove  to  satisfy  it  by  passing  from  a  naive 
chronicle  of  events  to  a  pragmatic  historical  method,  in 
which  they  developed  one  event  from  another,  explained 
one  by  another,  and  described  one  as  conditioned  by 
another.  From  the  examples  already  given  in  the  pre- 
ceding section,  whose  number  could  easily  be  increased, 
it  can  be  seen  how  arbitrary  this  connection  and  inter- 
pretation, as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  in  almost  every  case, 
and  to  what  extent  it  was  dominated  by  the  subjective 
feelings  and  opinions  of  the  narrator.  Human  longing 
for  knowledge  was  not  arrested  by  the  pragmatic 
method  of  historical  description.  It  pretended  to  offer 
an  explanation  of  isolated  phenomena  while  neglecting 
altogether  the  notion  of  a  universal  story,  of  which  the 
narration  of  the  historian  represents  only  a  part.    Long 

47 


48       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

before  the  conception  became  definite  it  was  dimly 
realized  by  men  that  all  human  existence  is  a  unified 
process,  in  which  the  concrete  events  that  are  the  subject 
of  written  history  are  but  incidental  features.  They  felt 
a  keen  desire  to  advance  from  arithmetic  to  algebra, 
from  the  action  of  one  individual  or  group  of  individuals 
to  a  universal  formula  that  should  include  the  regular 
course  of  human  action  as  a  whole.  Thus  the  transition 
was  made  from  historical  writing  proper,  the  narration 
of  events  with  a  definite  space  and  time,  to  the  phi- 
losophy of  history. 

We  need  not  dig  very  deep  to  find  the  source  of  the 
philosophy  of  history.  "  Singly  or  collectively,"  as 
Lacombe  *  correctly  observed,  "  it  displeases  us  to  be 
the  sport  of  chance."  In  other  words,  we  think  causally, 
and  our  intellect  cannot  rest  until  it  has  assigned  to 
every  phenomenon  that  it  perceives  such  a  cause  as 
seems  adequate  at  the  stage  of  knowledge  which  has  been 
reached,  and  can  without  glaring  contradiction  be  fitted 
into  the  current  system  of  ideas  and  judgments.  It  is 
frequently  maintained,  and  repeated  without  examina- 
tion, that  the  philosophy  of  history,  both  the  word  and 
the  thing,  originated  with  Voltaire.2  Baudrillart  proved 
this  to  be  an  error.3  He  proved  that,  two  centuries 
before  Voltaire,  Jean  Bodin  consciously  developed  a 
philosophy  of  history.  But  he  failed  to  notice,  or  at 
least  to  mention,  that  the  "  philosophy  of  history  "  was 

1  P.  Lacombe,  op.  cit.,  p.  23. 

*  R.  Rocholl,  "The  Philosophy  of  History:  a  critical  account  of  the 
attempts  to  create  it,"  Gottingen,  1878,  p.  66.  Rocholl  gives  Bagehot 
as  his  authority  for  "  the  appearance  of  the  term  in  Voltaire  (Paris 
edition  of  1822)." 

*  Baudrillart,  "  Jean  Bodin  et  Son  Temps,"  Paris,  1853. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     49 

also  first  used  by  Bodin.  He  casually  remarks  that 
"  Philo  the  Jew  might  be  called  a  philosophic  his- 
torian." T 

The  philosophy  of  history  is  an  attempt  to  give  a 
rational  explanation  of  historical  events.  It  endeavours 
to  discover  the  law  that  regulates  them,  and  to  trace  a 
meaning  in  its  operation  that  introduces  logical  order 
into  the  events  of  the  past,  illuminates  the  present,  and 
casts  some  light  upon  the  future.  There  can  be  no 
worthier  task  for  the  human  mind.  But  it  has  hitherto 
been  attempted  with  most  inadequate  means  and  by  most 
faulty  methods. 

The  philosophy  of  history  must  proceed  from  the 
assumption  that  history  is  governed  by  some  law.  Even 
chance  would  be  such  a  law;  but  if  chance  had  to  be 
regarded  as  the  law  of  history,  its  philosophy  would  end 
where  it  began.  It  could  have  nothing  more  to  say 
were  it  once  established  that  human  affairs  were  gov- 
erned by  blind  unregulated  accident.  A  round  nought  at 
the  bottom  would  be  all  that  could  be  made  of  such  a 
sum.  This  is  a  conclusion  which  has  not,  so  far,  been 
reached  by  a  philosopher  of  any  standing.  Every  one 
has  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that  there  must  be 
some  rational  meaning  in  the  life  of  man  as  displayed  in 
his  history,  and  devoted  himself  simply  to  discovering 
and  expressing  what  that  meaning  is.  Hardly  one  has 
thought  it  necessary  to  investigate  the  theoretical  basis 
and  justification  of  the  assumption. 

1  I.  Bodini,  "  Methodus  ad  f  acilem  historiarum  cognitionem,"  Am- 
steeaedami,  Sumptibus  Joannis  Ravesteiny,  1650,  caput  x. :  "  De  his- 
toricorum  ordine  et  collectione."  P.  398:  ".  .  .  Philonis  Judaei  qui 
Philosophistoricus  appellari  potest.  .  .  J" 


50       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Nevertheless,  the  demand  that  history — that  is  to  say, 
that  human  life — must  possess  a  meaning  intelligible  to 
man  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  anthropomorphism. 
Self-observation  teaches  man  that  every  conscious  act  of 
will  is  preceded  by  some  thought  and  directed  to  some 
purpose.  He  cannot  imagine  a  man's  acting  without 
this  conscious  exercise  of  will  and  purpose,  unless  he  be 
drunk,  sleep-walking,  or  mad.  Generalizing,  then,  from 
his  own  subjective  experience,  he  applies  it  to  the  realm 
of  phenomena,  from  which  it  was  not  deduced,  and  to 
which  it  does  not  apply.  Human  life,  looked  at  as  a 
whole,  seems  to  him  to  be  continuous  activity,  and  he 
seeks  for  its  meaning  as  though  it  were,  like  an  after- 
noon call  or  an  Easter  holiday,  the  outcome  of  human 
reflection  and  human  will,  and  not  the  outcome  of  a 
combination  of  forces  operating  outside  the  sphere  of 
human  will  and  consciousness.  He  goes  on  in  the  same 
way  to  assimilate  humanity  to  the  individual,  and  to 
identify  its  becoming,  being,  and  doing  with  that  of  the 
individual ;  and  thinks  that,  just  as  he  can  say  in  the  case 
of  the  action  of  a  man,  "  What  does  he  mean  by  it?  "  he 
can  say  to  the  course  of  history  as  a  whole,  "  What  does 
humanity  mean  by  it?  " 

He  does  not  notice  what  arbitrary  and  unproved 
assumptions  are  contained  in  this  question.  It  premises 
that  the  events  composing  the  fabric  of  history  are  ful- 
filled in  accordance  with  a  predetermined  purpose.  But 
purposive  action  is  only  conceivable  as  guided  by  an 
idea  and  a  will  conscious  of  that  purpose  and  of  reasons 
for  pursuing  it.  In  what  consciousness  is  there  developed 
the  idea  of  a  purpose  governing  the  historical  action 
of  mankind  and  a  will  directing  it  to  this  purpose? 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     51 

Not  in  the  consciousness  of  a  man,  for  no  man  acts  from 
any  conscious  purpose  save  the  fulfillment  of  some  im- 
mediate need,  whether  he  be  the  greatest  or  the  meanest : 
the  conqueror  who  lays  the  world  in  ruins  at  his  feet 
and  builds  it  up  anew,  who  leads  his  armies  across  three 
continents,  murdering,  harrying,  and  laying  waste  by 
fire  and  sword;  the  discoverer,  who  binds  a  new  force  of 
nature  to  the  service  of  mankind,  and  carries  civilization 
a  step  further  on  its  way;  or  the  day  labourer,  whose 
activity  provides  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  wants 
and  creates  the  material  for  his  own  support  and  that 
of*  the  community  as  a  whole.  The  connection  between 
his  action  and  the  course  of  the  total  life  of  man,  of 
which  he  is  not  conscious,  determines  it  as  little  as  do 
the  distant  consequences  and  remote  effects  of  which 
he  has  no  suspicion.  Moreover,  only  a  small  portion  of 
mankind  were  affected  by  the  greatest  deeds,  whether 
of  individual  personalities  or  of  nations,  which  history 
records,  such  as  the  destruction  of  the  Persian  Empire 
by  Alexander  the  Great,  the  conquest  of  Gaul  by  Caesar, 
the  establishment  of  Christianity  among  the  Gentiles 
by  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  the  discovery  of  America  by 
Columbus;  the  great  majority  have  been  entirely 
unaware  of  them  at  the  time.  If  they  have  exer- 
cised any  influence  upon  their  destiny,  it  has  been 
remote  and  secondary,  and  it  is  only  by  doing  vio- 
lence by  facts  that  a  meaning  can  be  sought  or  found 
in  them  relative  to  the  course  of  human  history  as  a 
whole. 

A  developed  idea  of  a  rational  purpose  governing 
human  affairs  and  a  will  directed  to  its  fulfilment  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  consciousness  of  any  actor.     There 


52       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

are  historical  personages  who  were  in  their  time  famed 
for  their  foresight,  and  who  are  known  as  the  authors 
of  far-reaching  and  comprehensive  schemes  and  of 
political  testaments.  Henry  IV.  of  France  dreamed 
of  a  federated  Europe,  Richelieu  made  the  fighting  and 
weakening  of  the  Hapsburgs  the  one  object  of  French 
policy  for  a  century  and  a  half,  and  Frederick  the  Great 
left  a  wide  range  of  advice  to  his  successor.  Had  the 
idea  of  any  object  of  political  activity  other  than  the 
direct  advantage  of  their  own  country  or  dynasty  en- 
tered the  minds  of  these  or  any  other  men,  they  would 
have  expressed  it  as  they  did  their  ideas  of  the  line  of 
policy  to  be  pursued  for  the  profit  and  aggrandizement 
of  their  realm.  Had  they  done  so,  we  should  possess 
reliable  information  as  to  the  lines  and  aims  of  human 
development,  instead  of  being  dependent  on  the  in- 
genious suppositions  and  impudent  assertions  of  philo- 
sophic historians,  who,  without  any  practical  experience 
of  action,  are  always  able  to  give  us  precise  information 
as  to  the  motives  which  were  unknown  to  the  actors 
themselves. 

I  think  I  have  proved  that  the  conception  of  a  pur- 
pose governing  the  historical  action  of  mankind  is  not 
present  in  the  consciousness  of  the  actors,  nor  the  out- 
come of  their  will.  To  establish  the  existence  in  that 
action  of  a  rational  meaning  and  an  aim,  another  con- 
sciousness must  be  postulated  which  knows  the  aim, 
conceives  the  purpose,  and  excites  its  will  for  its  realiza- 
tion. Such  a  consciousness  can  only  exist  outside  of 
humanity.  It  must  be  situated  in  a  Mind  that  thinks, 
develops  ideas,  can  exercise  will,  and  uses  men  as  the 
ploughman  uses  the  oxen  that  draw  his  plough,  without 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     53 

knowing  why  or  to  what  end.  But  such  a  thinking  and 
willing  Mind  above  and  beyond  humanity  would  be  God. 
Now,  the  philosophy  of  history  could  only  rest  upon  a 
scientific  basis  had  the  course  of  history  itself  displayed 
such  a  conception  of  purpose  at  work  as  finds  no  place  in 
the  consciousness  of  man,  and  involves  the  assumption  of 
God  as  consciously  directing  the  unconscious  action  of 
mankind.  But  its  actual  procedure  has  been  the  exact 
opposite  of  this.  The  existence  of  God  was  from  the 
beginning  taken  as  proved,  and  as  postulating  the  con- 
ception of  a  purpose  in  history;  after  this  artifice  the 
reality  of  the  conception  no  longer  requires  to  be  proved 
by  historical  facts,  since  it  can  be  referred  back  to  God, 
whose  existence  has  already  been  assumed. 

The  problem  involved  in  the  question  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  human  action  was  not  at  first  apparent  to  the 
philosophic  historian.  It  is  like  the  flask  that  Loki 
cunningly  set  before  Thor,  and  which  he  in  vain  tried  to 
empty.  He  did  not  see  that  it  was  the  ocean  that  he  was 
trying  to  drain.  Humanity  is  a  portion  of  the  universe. 
Its  destiny  is  bound  up  with,  and  dependent  on,  the 
universal.  There  was  a  world  before  man ;  there  will  be 
a  world  after  him.  If  human  existence  has  a  meaning, 
the  existence  of  the  universe  must  have  a  meaning  too. 
The  appearance  and  future  disappearance  of  humanity 
is  a  trivial  episode  in  the  eternal  origination  and  dis- 
appearance of  the  solar  system  and  life-bearing  planets. 
One  episode  in  a  process  cannot  have  a  meaning  if  the 
process  itself  has  none.  If  the  warp  and  woof  of  the 
universe  is  a  chaos  of  eternal  forces,  contending  without 
aim  or  purpose  visible  to  human  reason,  it  is  obviously 
vain  to  look  for  any  rational  aim  or  purpose  in  human 


54       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

existence,  or  in  any  life  that  comes  into  being  for  a 
moment  when  matter  in  the  form  of  primary  vapour 
thickens  to  form  a  heavenly  body,  lasts  for  a  while,  and 
is  doomed  to  dissolution  when  matter  passes  from  the 
heavenly  body  back  to  the  condition  of  primary  vapour. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  philosophy  of  history  undertakes 
to  lift  the  veil  that  shrouds  the  great  secret  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  tries  to  catch  hold  of  it  by  the  nearest  corner 
— the  one  which  covers  the  history  of  human  life.  Could 
it  but  succeed  in  demonstrating  that  the  development  of 
mankind  upon  the  earth  is  directed  towards  a  rational 
purpose,  and  prove  the  attainment  of  this  purpose  to  lie 
along  the  line  of  the  actual  movements  of  mankind  in 
the  course  of  their  history,  it  would  thereby  have  reached 
a  point  from  which  a  far  further  view  of  eternity  could 
be  gained.  We  could  then  proceed  logically  from  the 
rational  aim  of  human  development  to  a  rational  pur- 
pose in  the  universe  as  a  whole,  and  find  a  satisfactory 
answer  to  the  question  why  energy  is  perpetually  flashing 
across  the  universe?  why  the  heavenly  bodies  pursue  an 
endless  round  of  rising  and  setting?  why  life  and  con- 
sciousness arose  in  the  cosmos?  what  is  the  meaning  of 
the  world?  However  the  philosophy  of  history  may 
appear  to  deduce  the  conception  of  purpose  solely  from 
the  actions  of  man,  it  really  undertakes  the  solution  of 
the  riddle  of  the  universe,  and  its  solution  is  the  same  as 
that  with  which  mankind  originally  tried  to  satisfy  their 
desire  to  know.  Humanity  silenced  the  earliest  demands 
of  its  reason  to  comprehend  natural  phenomena  by 
pleasing  inventions,  arrived  at  by  means  of  the  method 
of  analogy.  The  world  must  be  the  work  of  an  incon- 
ceivably clever  and  powerful  artist,  as  implements  of 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     55 

stone,  weapons,  clothes,  and  huts  were  the  handiwork  of 
clever  men.  Thunder  and  lightning,  the  roar  of  the 
winter  storm,  earthquakes  and  volcanic  eruptions,  repre- 
sented the  anger  of  some  tremendous  warrior,  who 
threatened  men  with  death  and  destruction,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  enemies,  animal  and  human,  to  whom 
they  were  accustomed.  All  primitive  religion  is  to  some 
extent  the  outcome  of  the  need  for  assigning  a  rational 
meaning  and  comprehensive  cause  to  the  phenomena  of 
the  external  world.  Imagination  steps  in  where  certain 
information  falls  short.  Until  the  human  mind  has 
learned  to  observe  facts  patiently,  with  an  attention 
sternly  disciplined,  it  will  accept  any  convenient  notion 
that  happens  to  be  presented  to  it. 

Before  it  arrives  at  testing  its  hypotheses  by  continual 
comparison  with  reality,  experiences  are  arbitrarily 
combined  and  uncritically  generalized  into  stories.  Any 
correction  of  these  stories  is  resisted  as  an  inconvenient 
disturbance  of  a  comfortable  habit  of  thought.  The 
mythology  which  invents  gods  in  the  likeness  of  men, 
in  order  to  explain  the  world,  introduces  the  conception 
of  a  rational  purpose  into  history  in  order  to  shield 
mankind  from  the  horror  of  its  incomprehensibility.  A 
philosophy  of  history  which  tries  to  interpret  history  by 
means  of  preconceived  opinions  is  not  a  gamble,  as 
Simmel *  calls  "  metaphysical  speculations  about  his- 
tory," but  theology,  as  Trezza  correctly  observes.2    The 

1  Georg  Simmel,  "  Problems  of  the  Philosophy  of  History,"  Leipzig, 
1892,  p.  105. 

2  Trezza,  quoted  by  R.  Rocholl  (op.  at.,  p.  229):  "There  has 
hitherto  been  no  philosophy  of  history,  for  the  theological  method 
introducing  a  divine  providence  or  a  rule  of  law  that  is  entirely  for- 
eign has  no  claim  to  be  such." 


56       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

assumption  of  Gods,  or  of  a  God,  released  men  from  that 
time  forward  from  the  necessity  of  searching  further 
explanation.  God  is  an  answer  to  everything,  a  way  out 
of  every  difficulty.  The  beginning  of  all  things  ?  God ! 
The  purpose  of  all  existence?  The  knowledge  and  wor- 
ship of  God.  The  meaning  of  human  life?  A  prepara- 
tion for  the  eternal  service  of  God.  The  philosophy  of 
history  merely  waves  the  torch  of  religion  across  the 
darkness  that  it  pretends  to  light  up.  It  decrees  that  the 
progress  of  history  is  directed  by  God.  Human  action 
has  a  purpose  laid  down  by  God.  This  purpose  is  the 
attainment  of  goodness,  virtue,  justice,  and  wisdom  by 
means  of  the  subjugation  of  evil.  Nationalities  are 
forms  through  which  humanity  must  pass  in  a  per- 
petually ascending  scale  of  freedom  and  morality.  This 
unctuous  doctrine  has  been  put  forward  in  almost  every 
philosophy  of  history  up  to  the  present  day,  in  complete 
disregard  of  the  innumerable  facts  that  prove  such 
dogmatism  to  be  the  most  senseless  twaddle.  For  one 
Lingard,  who  candidly  admits  that  History  represents 
the  sorrows  heaped  upon  all  men  by  "  the  passions  of 
the  few,"  there  are  ten  Bancrofts  crying  with  uplifted 
eyes  that  "  History  is  a  divine  power  that  cannot  be 
falsified  by  human  interpolations."  William  von  Hum- 
boldt declares :  "  The  historian  must  believe  in  the  gov- 
ernance of  the  universe."  Schelling  sees  in  history  as  a 
whole  "  a  continuous  revelation  of  the  Absolute  grad- 
ually accomplishing  itself."  Krause  confidently  preaches 
that  "  History  describes  the  temporal  revelation  of 
God,"  and  the  dominant  idea  of  Bunsen's  philosophy 
of  history  is  sufficiently  expressed  in  its  title,  "  God  in 
History." 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     57 

"  Much  the  same  way  the  preacher  spoke, 
Only  with  slightly  different  phrases." — (Faust.) 

But  the  preacher  assigns  his  wisdom  to  divine  revela- 
tion, while  the  historians  maintain  that  their  view  is 
drawn  from  the  facts  of  history.  But  their  attitude  to 
these  facts,  one  and  all  of  them!  They  treat  them  as 
the  gardener  of  a  French  park  treats  his  box-hedges. 
They  clip  them,  improve  them,  and  alter  them,  until 
they  assume  the  shape  that  they  have  determined  upon 
from  the  beginning.  They  approach  history  with  the 
preconceived  notion  that  it  declares  the  purposeful  ruling 
of  God,  and  overlooking  or  omitting  whatever  does  not 
harmonize  with,  or  absolutely  contradicts,  this  view, 
they  arbitrarily  and  forcibly  twist  the  rest  into  the  shape 
they  want. 

The  theologians  are  really  the  most  honest  in  their 
procedure.  They  resort  to  faith  without  any  beating 
about  the  bush,  and  so  avoid  the  necessity  of  convincing 
the  critical  understanding.  They  set  up  their  assertions, 
and  triumphantly  cast  a  verse  from  the  Bible  in  the  teeth 
of  any  heretic  who  ventures  to  dispute  them.  Anyone 
godless  enough  to  question  the  authority  of  the  Bible  is 
damned,  and  the  most  they  can  do  is  to  pray  for  the 
salvation  of  his  soul.  The  first  and  most  distinguished 
of  this  class  of  philosophic  historians  is  St.  Augustine, 
who,  in  his  principal  work,  "  De  Civitate  Dei,"  under- 
took to  discover  and  relate  the  meaning  of  all  human 
history.  There  are  two  kingdoms,  the  divine  and  the 
earthly.  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  that  whose  citizens 
we  long  to  be,  with  the  love  inspired  in  us  by  its  founder. 
The  citizens  of  the  earthly  kingdom  prefer  their  idols  to 


58       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  founder  of  the  heavenly  kingdom."  *  The  kingdom 
of  God  is  that  of  the  pious  and  true  believers,  the  earthly 
kingdom  that  of  heathens  and  heretics.  "  Thus  the  two 
different  kingdoms  have  been  created  by  two  different 
kinds  of  love :  the  earthly  by  the  love  of  self  rising  to  a 
contempt  of  God,  the  heavenly  by  a  love  of  God  rising 
to  contempt  of  self."2  "We  have  no  assurance  that 
mankind  was  at  the  time  of  Arphaxates  removed  from 
the  worship  of  the  true  God,  but  the  kingdom  or  society 
of  the  impious  may  be  dated  from  the  impiously  arrogant 
attempt  to  build  a  tower  reaching  to  Heaven."  3  "A 
premonition  of  the  kingdom  of  God  may  be  noted  .  .  . 
at  the  time  of  the  patriarch  Abraham,  after  which  it 
becomes  more  pronounced." 4  The  kingdom  of  God 
was  fully  revealed  to  man  at  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Since  His  mortal  pilgrimage,  the  earthly  kingdom, 
which  serves  Satan,  the  fallen  angel  who  rose  in  rebellion 
against  God,  has  fought  obstinately,  but  with  ever- 
weakening  strength,  against  the  kingdom  of  God,  which 
will  at  the  end  of  time  finally  conquer  the  earthly  king- 
dom ;  the  number  of  the  saints  determined  by  God  will 
be  fulfilled,  and  after  the  elimination  of  evil  from  the 
earth,  mankind  will  be  admitted  to  full  communion  with 
God.  The  life  of  humanity  upon  earth  lasts  seven  of 
God's  days  of  a  thousand  years  each.  The  first  day  lasts 
from  the  creation  of  Adam  to  the  Flood,  the  second  from 
the  Flood  to  Abraham,  the  third  from  Abraham  to 
David,  the  fourth  from  David  to  the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity of  the  Jews,  the  fifth  from  the  Babylonian  captivity 
to  the  Advent  of  Christ.    Since  Christ  mankind  has  been 

1  "  De  Civitate  Dei,"  xi.  i.  *  Ibid.,  xiv.  28. 

'Ibid.,  xvi.   10.  *  Ibid.,  xvi.  12. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     59 

living  in  the  sixth  day.  At  the  close  of  the  sixth  day  the 
Last  Judgment  and  the  Resurrection  will  take  place,  and 
the  seventh  day  will  begin  God's  day  of  rest — the  Sab- 
bath that  has  no  end.1  St.  Augustine's  chronology  is 
not  perfectly  exact.  The  third  day  does  not  include  a 
full  thousand  years,  but  only  fourteen  generations,  which 
became  much  shorter  after  the  time  of  the  patriarchs 
than  they  were  from  Adam  down  to  the  Flood,  and  in 
the  time  of  Abraham.  St.  Augustine  is  also  careful  to 
remark  that  he  cannot  answer  for  the  duration  of  the 
sixth  day.  He  wished  to  avoid  the  possibility  that  six 
hundred  years  hence — he  wrote  his  book  on  the  King- 
dom of  God  in  a.d.  400 — his  calculations  might  be  falsi- 
fied by  the  non-arrival  of  the  Last  Judgment.  The  sixth 
day  is  "  nullo  generationum  numero  metienda  " — not 
measurable  by  any  number  of  generations — because  it 
stands  in  Holy  Writ;  "  non  est  vestrum  scire  tempora 
quae  pater  posuit  in  sua  potestate  " — "  it  is  not  yours  to 
know  the  things  which  are  in  the  hand  of  the  Father." 
This  did  not  prevent  Christianity  in  A.D.  1000  from  ex- 
pecting the  end  of  the  world,  the  termination  of  the  sixth 
day,  and  beginning  of  the  Sabbath  according  to  St.  Au- 
gustine. But  when  the  awful  day,  expected  with  mortal 
fears,  passed  by  without  anything  remarkable  happening, 
the  reputation  of  the  prophets  who  had  followed  Au- 
gustine in  dating  the  Sabbath  for  the  year  1000  did  not 
suffer  at  all.  Real  faith  is  not  perturbed  by  facts  that 
prove  to  be  ridiculous — it  passes  them  by  or  interprets 
them  in  some  other  way. 

The  plan  of  the  philosophy  of  history  of  the  Bishop 
of  Hippo  places  it  outside  the  reach  of  rational  criticism. 

1  "  De  Civitate  Dei,"  xxii.  30. 


60       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

One  can  hardly  investigate  seriously  such  dogmatic 
assertions  as  those  concerning  the  revolt  of  Satan  against 
God,  the  seven  days  of  the  world,  and  the  Resurrection 
and  Last  Judgment  on  the  eve  of  the  seventh  day.  St. 
Augustine  records  the  pious  fairy-tale  of  his  own  inven- 
tion with  fervour,  and  does  not  trouble  at  all  about  its 
truth.  His  sole  source  is  the  Bible.  He  accepts  every 
word  literally.  He  regards  Adam,  his  sons  and  de- 
scendants, Noah  and  Abraham,  as  historical  personages. 
He  believes  in  Methusaleh's  969  years.  His  mode  of 
thought  and  his  logic  may  be  estimated  from  passages 
like  the  following :  "  Of  all  visible  things,  the  greatest  is 
the  world:  of  invisible,  the  greatest  is  God.  That  the 
world  is,  we  see;  that  God  is,  we  believe.  Our  belief 
that  God  made  the  world  rests  on  the  testimony  of  no 
less  a  witness  than  God  Himself.  Where  have  we  heard 
Him?  In  no  less  place  than  Holy  Writ,  where  His 
prophet  has  said,  '  In  the  beginning  God  made  the 
Heaven  and  the  Earth.'  "  * 

For  him  a  verse  in  the  Bible  is  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God,  and  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the 
universe.  The  only  ancient  history  that  has  any  value 
or  existence  for  him  is  the  history  of  the  Jewish  people. 
He  turns  away  from  the  past  of  all  the  rest  of  mankind 
with  perfect  indifference.  The  account  of  Christ  in 
the  Gospels  is  for  him  strict  historical  truth.  The 
coming  of  Christ,  of  which  the  greatest  peoples  of  the 
earth  knew  nothing,  and  which  seemed  to  the  majority 
of  his  own  contemporaries,  living  in  the  scene  of  His 
activity,  an  event  so  unimportant  that  it  is  not  recorded 
by  one  impartial  contemporary  witness — this  is  to  him 

1  "  De  Civitate  Dei,"  xi.  4. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     61 

the  greatest  event  in  history,  and  its  sole  essential  con- 
tent. The  growth  and  decay  of  nations,  the  rise  and  fall 
of  kingdoms,  the  struggle  in  the  community  for  power 
and  dominion,  the  rise  and  modifications  of  public  institu- 
tions, are  to  him  matters  of  complete  indifference,  except 
in  so  far  as  they  can  be  connected  with  the  ostensible 
preparations  for,  and  spread  of,  Christianity,  its  battles 
and  its  victories.  What  are  race-migrations,  wars,  or 
revolutions?  Why  linger  over  them?  why  inquire  as  to 
their  origin  and  development?  why  seek  for  a  law  gov- 
erning their  progress?  All  that  has  no  significance.  On 
the  one  side  are  the  faithful  who  believe  in  Jesus,  on  the 
other  the  servants  of  the  devil,  who  will  know  naught  of 
Him.  Between  the  two  camps  there  is  irreconcilable 
enmity,  until  in  the  fulness  of  time  there  comes  the  Last 
Judgment,  and  all  history  is  brought  to  its  sacred  con- 
clusion with  the  triumph  of  the  kingdom  of  God  over 
Satan  and  his  crew. 

Such  is  the  philosophy  of  history  as  expounded  by 
St.  Augustine.  It  is  a  supplement  to  the  Bible  and  the 
Catechism.  It  is  based  upon  revelation,  and  scorns 
earthly  proofs.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  reason.  Any- 
one who  doubts  or  denies  is  a  heretic,  deserves  only  the 
treatment  the  Church  reserves  for  such.  It  is  under- 
standable that  the  Middle  Ages  should  have  reverently 
followed  in  the  steps  of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  and  built 
up  their  history  upon  his  interpretation.  It  is  less  com- 
prehensible that  he  should  have  pointed  out  the  way 
which  the  philosophy  of  history  has  followed  down  to 
recent  times.  Bossuet  was  a  Bishop  of  the  Roman 
Church,  so  it  need  excite  no  surprise  to  find  him  occupy- 
ing quite  the  same  point  of  view  as  his  African  brother. 


62       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

He,  too,  divides  history  into  seven  epochs,  though  he 
assigns  their  limits  somewhat  differently.  With  the 
Bishop  of  Meaux,  the  third  period  extends  down  to 
Moses,  the  fourth  to  Solomon  and  the  building  of  the 
first  temple,  the  fifth  to  the  return  of  the  Jews  from 
Babylon,  the  sixth  to  the  birth  of  Jesus,  and  the  seventh 
down  to  the  last  day.  The  two  first  parts  of  his  "  Dis- 
cours  sur  l'Histoire  Universelle  "  are  devoted  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel,  with  a  few  casual  remarks  on  the  peoples 
with  whom  they  came  in  contact,  and  by  whom  their 
destinies  were  influenced.  We  have  to  wait  for  the  third 
and  shortest  section  for  any  fuller  treatment  of  the 
Asiatic  world  powers,  of  the  classical  nations,  and  of 
Western  Europe  generally,  down  to  the  time  of  Charle- 
magne; but  Bossuet  justifies  this  to  his  own  satisfaction 
by  saying:  "  These  kingdoms  have  for  the  most  part  a 
necessary  connection  with  God's  chosen  people.  God 
made  use  of  the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians  to  chastise 
His  people,  of  the  Persians  to  restore  it,  of  Alexander 
and  his  immediate  successors  to  protect  it,  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  and  his  successors  to  test  it,  of  the  Romans  to 
maintain  it  in  freedom  against  the  Syrian  kings,  bent 
only  on  its  destruction.  The  Jews  remained  under  the 
power  of  these  same  Romans  down'  to  the  time  of  Jesus 
Christ.  When  they  denied  and  crucified  Him,  divine 
vengeance  used  the  unconscious  Romans  as  the  instru- 
ment for  the  extermination  of  the  thankless  race.  Hav- 
ing resolved  at  a  certain  time  to  gather  all  peoples 
together  into  a  new  community,  God  joined  land  and  sea 
under  the  sway  of  this  empire.  One  of  the  most  power- 
ful instruments  of  Providence  for  the  free  spread  of  the 
Gospel  was  the  intercourse  thus  afforded  between  the 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     63 

many  different  peoples,  who  ceased  to  be  strangers  to  one 
another  when  they  were  brought  together  under  the  do- 
minion of  Rome."  * 

The  blind  faith  of  the  Middle  Ages  makes  it  little 
astonishing  that  the  medieval  historians — Ekkehard, 
Bede,  Isidor  of  Seville — accepted,  as  did  Bossuet,  the 
seven  epochs  of  St.  Augustine,  and  the  four  world 
powers  of  the  prophet  Daniel.  It  is,  however,  amazing 
to  find  Bossuet's  views  expounded  with  solemn  earnest- 
ness down  to  recent  times.  Johannes  von  Miiller  de- 
clares with  an  assurance  that  admits  of  no  doubts, 
"  Jesus  Christ  is  the  key  to  the  history  of  the  universe." 
Schelling  says  almost  in  the  same  words:  "  Christianity 
is  the  centre  and  key  of  all  history."  Fichte  is,  as  usual, 
rather  nebulous  and  mystical,  but  if  his  pronouncement 
at  the  close  of  his  "  Characteristics  of  the  Present  Age  " 
be  correctly  interpreted,  he  anticipates  as  the  end  of 
history  the  realization  of  the  Christianity  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  St.  John,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon 
earth,  a  spiritual  kingdom  of  love.  Unlike  the  clerical 
historians,  he  never  cites  the  Bible;  his  knowledge  is 
wholly  drawn  from  the  depths  of  his  own  inner  con- 
sciousness. "  The  philosopher  who  concerns  himself,  as 
a  philosopher,  with  history  follows  up  the  a  priori  clue 
to  the  cause  of  the  world,  which  is  clear  to  him  apart 
from  history.  His  conclusions  are  already  established 
prior  to  and  independent  of  history,  which  is  to  him  use- 
less as  a  method  of  proof."  2     A  philosophy  of  history 

1  Bossuet,  "  Discours  sur  l'Histoire  Universelle  a  Monseigneur  Ie 
Dauphin,"  part  iii.,  chap.  i. 

1  J.  S.  Fichte,  "  The  Characteristics  of  the  Present  Age,"  col- 
lected works,  edited  by  J.  H.  Fichte,  Berlin,  1846,  vol.  vii.,  p.  139. 


64       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

which  can  unerringly  establish  the  object  and  meaning  of 
history  without  studying  it  is  indeed  the  chef  d'ceuvre  of 
intellectual  gymnastics. 

Of  course,  a  juggler  who  is  clever  in  the  use  of  dia- 
lectic, and  unscrupulous  enough  to  combine,  without 
criticism,  events  that  are  glaringly  discrepant,  can  readily 
draw  a  historical  picture  in  which  every  event  refers  back 
to  Jesus  and  depends  upon  Christianity.  But  by  the 
same  inventive  sophistry  it  could  be  proved  that  the 
course  of  universal  history  up  to  1492  was  only  a  prepa- 
ration for  the  discovery  of  America,  which  has  deter- 
mined its  course  ever  since;  or,  to  push  the  joke  a  little 
further,  to  find  the  meaning  of  history  and  its  obvious 
aim  in  the  invention  of  the  game  of  Skat,  with  the  Per- 
sian War,  the  destruction  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the 
dissolution  of  the  Spanish  world-monarchy,  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  campaign 
of  1870  as  its  preliminary  stages.  The  whole  course  of 
history  can  in  this  fashion  be  referred  to  any  event  what- 
soever, only  provided  that  events  are  arranged  and 
selected  accordingly,  some  being  omitted  and  an  unreal 
importance  assigned  to  others. 

Voltaire  l  ridicules  Bossuet's  conception  of  history,  yet 
his  "  Discours  sur  l'Histoire  Universelle  "  is  used  to  this 
day  as  a  textbook  in  higher-grade  schools  in  France. 
Robert  Flint,  author  of  the  best  general  account  of  the 
literature  on  the  philosophy  of  history  of  the  principal 
European  nations,  enters  a  wise  caution  against  the 
views  of  St.  Augustine,  Orosius,  Bossuet,  and  their 
disciples,  whose  "  assertion  of  the  existence,  power,  and 

1  Voltaire,  "  Essai   sur  les  Moeurs  et  l'Esprit  des  Nations,  GEuvres 
Completes,"  Paris,  1853,  chap,  ill-,  p.  73,  §  I. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     65 

wisdom  of  the  First  Providential  Cause  ...  is  not  sup- 
ported by  adequate  proof."  But  a  few  lines  further  on 
he  is  guilty  of  the  same  dogmatism  himself :  "  The 
ultimate  and  greatest  triumph  of  historical  philosophy 
will  really  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  full  proof 
of  Providence,  the  discovery  by  the  processes  of  scientific 
method  of  a  divine  plan  which  unifies  and  harmonizes 
the  apparent  chaos  of  human  actions  contained  in  history 
in  a  cosmos."  1  There  could  be  no  more  ingenuous  con- 
fession of  the  old  deductive,  aphoristic  mode  of  thought. 
The  genuine  seeker  after  truth  and  knowledge  must 
approach  facts  without  preconceived  opinions  about 
them.  If  human  destiny  seems  chaotic,  he  must  sadly 
admit  that  he  sees  it  as  chaos,  and  can  discover  in  it 
neither  order  nor  meaning.  Flint  does  not  do  so.  He 
starts  with  the  conviction  that  history  must  evidence  a 
Providence  and  divine  plan.  Whence  does  he  obtain 
this  conviction?  Not  from  history — history  appears  to 
him  a  chaos — but  from  the  arbitrary  invention  of  his 
own  fancy,  from  his  own  wishes  and  desires.  He  ap- 
proaches history  with  a  subjective  conviction  already 
formed.  What  he  sees  directly  contradicts  his  convic- 
tion. He  sees  no  plan,  no  Providence;  only  a  chaos. 
Far  from  bowing  before  the  truth  and  abandoning  the 
conviction  that  is  falsified  by  the  testimony  of  his  eyes, 
he  clings  to  it,  and  confidently  expects  that  facts  will 
accommodate  themselves  to  it!  All  honour,  then,  to 
the  courageous  consistency  of  a  Fichte  who  proudly  de- 
clares that  his  opinion  of  history  was  formed  with- 
out so  much  as  a   glance  at  it,   and  that  the   cursed 

'Robert   Flint,   "The   Philosophy   of   History   in   France    and    Ger- 
many," Edinburgh  and  London,  1874,  p.  22. 


66       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

facts  have  got  to  conform  to  his  opinion  as  best  they 
may! 

There  is  one  most  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  those 
whowishto  see  history  directed  by  a  divine  plan  through- 
out, and  echoing  the  praises  of  the  all-wisdom  and  good- 
ness of  God:  or  to  regard  it,  with  Schelling,1  as  a  "  rev- 
elation of  God,"  or  "  an  epic  composed  in  the  mind  of 
God  " :  a  difficulty  that  has  involved  many  of  them  in 
most  fearful  confusion — namely,  the  presence  of  evil  in 
the  world.  There  is  no  denying  it.  It  is  far  too  glaring 
for  that.  History  displays  an  unbroken  succession  of 
wars  and  conquests,  tyranny  and  risings  against  it, 
deceit  and  treachery  crowned  by  success  and  triumphant 
over  persecuted  virtue,  and  might  victorious  over  right. 
Is  all  this  to  be  regarded  as  the  direct  will  of  a  moral 
order  governing  the  world?  Can  it  be  the  hand  of  a 
loving  God  that  purposely  heaps  these  horrors  upon 
man  ?  To  explain  suffering  as,  on  the  one  hand,  a  pun- 
ishment for  the  sins  of  men,  and,  on  the  other,  as  a 
salutary  discipline  ordained  by  Providence  to  test  and 
purge  them,  so  that  they  may  be  worthy  of  the  eternal 
grace  of  God,  may  satisfy  a  superficial  philosopher. 
More  profound  thinkers  cannot  dismiss  the  question  so 
easily.  Leibnitz  required  the  many  volumes  of  his 
"  Theodicy  "  to  prove  that  all  is  arranged  for  the  best  in 
this  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  and  that  all  the  phe- 

1  Fr.  W.  J.  v.  Schelling,  "  Collected  Works,"  Stuttgart  and  Augs- 
burg, i860,  vol.  vi.,  p.  57:  "History  is  an  epic  composed  in  the 
mind  of  God:  its  two  principal  parts  relate  the  departure  of 
humanity  from  its  Centre  to  the  furthest  point  of  distance,  and  their 
return.  The  one  part  is  the  '  Iliad,'  the  latter  the  '  Odyssey '  of  his- 
tory. .  .  .  Thus  is  the  great  purpose  of  the  universe  expressed  in 
history." 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     67 

nomena  of  the  universe  fit  into  a  place  ordained  by  God. 
That  no  one  has  hitherto  noted  the  colossal  humour  of 
the  "  Theodicy  "  is  the  strongest  possible  proof  of  the 
extraordinary  rarity  of  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  In 
"  Candide  "  Voltaire  is  certainly  inimitably  witty  at  the 
expense  of  Leibnitz's  optimism;  but  even  he  hardly 
seems  to  feel  the  absurdity  of  a  mortal's  feeling  obliged 
to  hold  the  brief  for  God,  and  expend  the  greatest  pains 
and  all  the  resources  of  his  professional  skill  in  order  to 
acquit  his  client  of  the  charges  brought  against  him,  or, 
at  least,  to  obtain  a  verdict  of  extenuating  circum- 
stances. 

"Rocholl x  divides  philosophic  historians  into  the 
11  theological,"  who  see  in  history  the  handiwork  of  God; 
the  "  humanistic,"  who  regard  it  as  the  work  of  man; 
and  the  "  naturalistic-materialistic,"  who  regard  it  as 
the  work  of  nature.  I  will  devote  no  more  time  to  the 
theologians.  They  explain  the  course  of  history  by  the 
ordinance  and  Providence  of  God,  who  created  the  earth 
and  mankind,  and  is  directing  them  by  wondrous  hidden 
ways  to  a  predetermined  goal.  For  proofs  of  this 
fantastic  product  of  their  own  brains  they  point  to  the 
Bible.  They  no  longer  look  to  it  for  their  cosmogony, 
or  uphold  the  story  of  the  Creation  in  Genesis  against 
the  conclusions  of  science;  but  they  still  seek  the  key  to 
history  in  the  Bible,  and  look  at  human  life  as  the 
medieval  scholastics  looked  at  nature.  Like  them,  igno- 
rant, blind,  and  arbitrary  in  their  interpretation  of  the 
facts,  which  they  are  unable  or  unwilling  to  observe,  they 
intentionally  close  their  eyes  to  everything  that  contra- 
dicts their  assertions. 

1  R.  Rocholl,  op.  cit.,  p.  i. 


68       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

The  desire  for  objective  conclusions  rather  than  sub- 
jective eloquence  finds  little  more  satisfaction  among 
those  whom  Rocholl  calls  the  humanists.  There  is  no 
fundamental  difference  between  them  and  the  theo- 
logians, for  they  too  assume  the  existence  of  a  world 
ordinance  and  Providence  without  bringing  forward  a 
single  proof  in  support  of  their  assertion  that  could  stand 
before  unprejudiced  criticism. 

The  reputation  of  Giambattista  Vico,  who  is  com- 
monly regarded  as  the  first  philosophic  historian  who 
was  not  a  theologian,  stands  especially  high.  Goethe, 
Johannes  Muller,  and  Fr.  A.  Wolf  had  a  high  opinion 
of  him.  In  his  Preface  to  Hegel's  "  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory," Edward  Gans  *  says:  "  There  are  only  four  truly 
philosophic  historians — Vico,  Herder,  Fr.  v.  Schlegel, 
and  Hegel."  Vico,  the  earliest  "  truly  philosophic  his- 
torian," did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  regard  himself  as  a  dis- 
coverer, for  he  calls  his  book  "  A  New  Science  of  the 
Common  Nature  of  Nations,"  2  and  claims  to  expound 
the  principles  of  this  science.  These  principles  are  as 
follows:  "  Belief  in  a  divine  Providence,  the  moderation 
of  the  passions  by  the  institution  of  marriage,  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  consecrated  by 
the  use  of  burial."  s  History  cannot  teach  faith  in  the 
divine  Providence.  Where  was  this  Providence  when 
Greece   was   given   over  to   the   plunder   of   the   rude 

1  G.  Wilh.  Friedr.  Hegel's  Works,  complete  edition,  edited  by  a 
band  of  friends  of  the  deceased,  vol.  ix.,  "Lectures  on  the  Philosophy 
of  History,"  edited  by  Dr.  Edward  Gans,  Berlin,  1837,  Preface,  p.  x. 

' "  Cinque  libri  di  Giambattista  Vico  de'  principj  d'  una  scienza 
nuova  d'  intomo  alia  natura  delle  nazioni,"  second  impression,  Naples, 
1730. 

*  Vico,  op.  cit.,  p.  182. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     69 

Romans,  when  ancient  civilization  was  blotted  out  by  the 
race  migrations,  when  the  Anglo-Saxon  England  of 
Harold  was  handed  over  to  the  Norman  freebooters, 
when  Europe  was  laid  waste  by  the  Mongolian  Ojenghis 
Khans  and  by  the  Black  Death?  How  did  it  permit 
Alba  to  carry  out  what  he  did  in  the  Netherlands,  permit 
Henry  IV.  to  be  murdered  by  Ravaillac,  allow  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  to  ravage  Germany,  and  take  sides  with  op- 
pression against  freedom  in  1849?  Such  a  list  can  be 
almost  indefinitely  extended.  If  there  be  a  Providence 
at  work  in  these  cases,  its  actions  are  not  governed  by 
what  mortal  men  understand  as  justice  or  morality.  It  is 
no  proof  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  that  savages  be- 
lieved in  it,  and  therefore  ceremoniously  interred  their 
dead.  As  for  the  second  principle — the  "  moderation  of 
the  passions  by  the  institution  of  marriage  " — it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  philosophy  of  history,  for  it 
throws  no  light  on  any  historical  event.  Moreover,  it  is 
false.  Marriage  did  not  arise  and  develop  with  the  ob- 
ject of  "  moderating  the  passions."  It  was  a  social  insti- 
tution, devised  to  strengthen  the  family  and  insure  the 
inheritance  of  property  by  the  heirs  of  him  who  had  ac- 
quired it.  Its  origin  lies  in  the  economic  conditions  of 
the  law  of  property,  and  is  neither  physiological  nor 
moral.  Throughout  the  course  of  history  there  is  only 
one  instance  of  marriage  as  a  political  question.  In 
Rome  full  legal  marriage — confarreatio — was  reserved 
originally  to  the  patricians,  and  could  not  be  entered  into 
by  a  plebeian.  The  plebeians  fought  long  and  bitterly  to 
be  admitted  to  the  full  marriage  rite.  But  they  did  so 
not  "  to  moderate  the  passions,"  but  because  the  right  of 
inheritance  was  confined  to  the  children  of  such  a  mar- 


70       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

riage.  The  plebeians,  in  fact,  sought  through  con- 
farreatio  for  that  full  right  of  inheritance  that  the  pa- 
tricians reserved  to  themselves.  The  question  was  thus 
one  episode  in  the  century-long  struggle  for  supremacy 
between  the  orders;  it  reappears  nowhere  else.  To  re- 
gard it  as  a  determining  factor  in  universal  history,  as 
Vico  does,  is  absurd. 

Even  his  famous  conception  of  the  ricorsi,1  the 
continued  recurrence  of  human  events,  is  really  very 
limited,  and  founded  on  an  extraordinarily  restricted 
basis  of  fact.  For  the  origin  of  his  view  he  produces 
only  one  fact:  the  similarity  between  the  origin  and  de- 
velopment of  the  medieval  feudal  systems  and  the  foun- 
dation of  Rome.  Even  were  the  comparison  of  the  two 
phenomena  a  just  one,  which  is  far  from  being  the  case, 
such  a  single  instance  of  the  occurrence  of  parallel  de- 
velopment would  be  far  from  justifying  the  predication 
of  a  universal  law  of  the  "  recurrence  of  human  events." 
There  is  something  far  more  impressive  in  the  old  Greek 
theory  of  the  eternal  cycles  encompassing  the  whole 
universe.  Vico's  little  ricorsi  are  but  parodies  of  the 
cycles  of  Empedocles,  Zeno,  and  Aristotle. 

Vico's  book  teems  with  eccentricities.  He  divides 
history  into  three  periods — the  divine,  the  heroic,  and 
the  human.  In  the  first  period  the  earth  was  inhabited 
by  might}  giants,  still  in  direct  relation  to  God.  In  the 
second  the  heroes  ruled,  whose  exploits  are  recorded  in 
folk-lore  and  to  whom  the  nobility  traces  back  its 
descent.  Humanity  is  at  present  in  the  third  stage.  Yet 
this    fairy-tale   has    had   considerable   effect.      Auguste 

1  Vico,   op.   cit.,  book   v.,   "  Del   ricorso   delle   cose   umane,"   pp.  428 
et  seq. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY      71 

Comte's  three  phases  of  development — theological, 
metaphysical,  and  positive — were  undoubtedly  sug- 
gested by  Vico's  three  periods.  And  the  twaddle  of 
Gobineau  about  the  heroes,  sons  of  kings,  who  are  called 
to  lead  the  populace  is  but  an  echo  of  Vico's  description 
of  the  heroes  of  the  second  period. 

As  Werner  x  correctly  observed,  Vico  did,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  "  like  Bossuet,  emphasize  the  providential 
guidance  of  history  and  the  fundamental  importance  of 
the  religious  element  in  it."  In  other  words,  he  is 
orthodox,  like  Bossuet  and  St.  Augustine,  and  drags 
into  history  the  improved  theological  assumptions  of  a 
divine  ordinance  of  the  world  and  predetermined  goal 
of  human  development. 

He  puts  his  doctrine  in  a  nutshell  when,  at  the  close 
of  his  "  New  Science,"  he  remarks  "  that  God  rules  men 
and  reveals  His  true  light  to  mortals  in  flashes."  This 
idea  that  the  action  of  men  is  ordered  by  God,  of  whose 
will  they  are  but  the  unconscious  instruments,  is  repeated 
by  Kant  in  his  "  Idea  of  a  Universal  History  from  the 
International  Point  of  View."  He  says,  in  the  Intro- 
duction, that  since  "  death,  birth,  and  marriage  appear 
to  be  governed  by  calculable  laws,  individuals  and  na- 
tions, while  imagining  themselves  to  be  following  their 
own  opposing  purposes,  are  really,  without  being  aware 
of  it,  under  the  guidance  of  a  great  natural  design." 
What  a  logical  summerset !  If  we  are  to  look  for  design 
and  will  in  every  regular  phenomenon,  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  the  sea,  which  appear  "  to  be  governed  by  calculable 

1  Professor  Karl  Werner,  "  On  Giambattista  Vico  as  a  philosophic 
Historian  and  Founder  of  the  New  Italian  Philosophy,"  Vienna, 
1877,  p.  22. 


72       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

laws,"  must  be  obeying  a  design  foreign  to  themselves. 
Such  obviously  is  not  the  scientific  view  of  tides. 

Edward  Gans'  second  "  truly  philosophic  historian  "  is 
Herder.  His  "  Idea  of  a  Philosophy  of  Human  His- 
tory "  was  greatly  admired  on  its  appearance,  regarded 
at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  a  textbook  of 
the  subject,  and  respectfully  quoted  to  this  day.  It  is, 
however,  hardly  readable  now,  as  much  on  account  of  its 
form  as  its  subject.  It  is  written  in  an  ornate  and  florid 
style.  Turgid  declamation  is  varied  by  rhetorical  invo- 
cation of  the  subject  in  hand — "  Fare  ye  well,  ye  wild 
regions  beyond  the  mountains  ...  it  is  under  another 
aspect  that  we  shall  see  most  of  you  again.  .  .  ." 
"  Tone  on,  mystic  harp  of  Ossian;  fortunate  the  man  in 
any  age  who  obeys  thy  soft  tones."  "  I  bow  reverently 
before  thy  lofty  form,  thou  head  and  founder  of  an 
empire  based  on  such  noble  aims,"  etc.  His  point  of 
view  is  that  of  a  childlike  theology.  Everything  that 
meets  his  eye  must  have  a  rational,  human  purpose. 
Everything  betrays  the  wise  design  of  an  omnipotent 
Creator.  Man  is  created  upright,  in  order  "  to  direct 
his  thoughts  and  wishes  towards  heaven."  *  Apes  have 
been  denied  the  gift  of  speech,  because  they  would  have 
misused  it.  "  Speech  would  be  dishonoured  in  the 
mouth  of  the  coarse,  sensual,  brutal  monkey,  who  would 
undoubtedly  ape  human  utterance  with  half  the  intelli- 
gence of  man.  A  horrible  mingle  of  human  tones  and 
monkey  thoughts — no !  human  speech  could  not  be  so 
degraded.     Thus  the  monkey  was  made  dumb,  more 

1  Johann  Gottfried  von  Herder,  "  Idea  of  a  Philosophy  of  Human 
History,"  Introduction  by  Heinrich  Luden,  Leipzig,  1812,  vol.  i., 
p.  120. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     73 

dumb  than  any  other  animal."  x  "  The  sole  effect  of  the 
cold  on  him  (the  inhabitant  of  the  North  Polar  regions) 
was  to  bow  his  body  and  constrict  the  circulation  of  his 
blood.  ...  But  his  vital  forces,  working  from  within 
outwards,  built  him  up  for  warmth,  toughness,  and  com- 
pactness, rather  than  for  height.  .  .  .  His  hair  re- 
mained stiff  and  straggling,  since  his  sap  was  not  con- 
stituted to  grow  soft,  silky  hair." 2  Such  pearls  occur  on 
almost  every  page.  Herder  constantly  reminds  one  of 
Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  who  said  of  the  melon,  in  his 
"  Harmonies  de  la  Nature  " :  "  It  is  externally  divided 
into  sections,  because  Nature  intended  it  for  family  eat- 
ing! "  In  his  "  Democritus,"  Weber  introduces  a  ribald 
German,  who  humorously  parodies  the  easy  way  in 
which  the  pious  explain  phenomena  by  saying:  "How 
wise  of  Providence  to  have  made  holes  in  the  cat's  fur 
just  where  the  eyes  are !  " 

Herder  sees  a  purpose  in  history,  and  expresses  it 
briefly  and  concisely:  "  The  purpose  of  human  nature  is 
humanity." 8  This  revelation  recalls  the  profound 
economic  explanation  which  Fritz  Reuter  makes  his 
inspector  Brasig  give  for  the  poverty  of  the  country- 
people  :  "  The  people's  poverty  is  due  to  their  necessitous 
state."  "  The  purpose  of  human  nature  is  humanity." 
What,  then,  is  humanity?  Herder  does  not  omit  to 
answer  the  question :  "  Humanity  is  reason  and  reason- 
ableness in  all  classes  and  all  human  affairs."  4  Now  we 
know.  Alexander  conquered  the  Persian  Empire,  Rome 
subdued  the  known  world  beneath  its  yoke,  Western 
Christendom  instituted  the  Crusades,  Spain  colonized 

'Herder,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.,  p.  132.  *  Ibid.,  p.  198. 

*  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  220.  *  Ibid.,  p.  243. 


74       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

South  and  Europe  North  America,  Napoleon  made  the 
last  first  all  over  Europe,  in  order  that  "  reason  and 
reasonableness  might  prevail  in  all  classes,  in  all  affairs." 
Herder  hastens  to  snub  anyone  who  doubts  "  that  a  de- 
sign of  this  kind  can  be  the  sole  purpose  of  Providence 
for  our  race.  The  fact  is  self-evident."  *  Only  a  per- 
verted mind  can  doubt  a  fact  that  is  "  self-evident." 

The  whole  book  is  a  welter  of  words  without  the 
smallest  kernel  of  meaning.  A  few  examples  will  suffice 
of  his  constant  concatenations  of  words  that  appear  to  be 
full  of  deep  meaning,  and  really  express  nothing  at  all 
when  one  looks  into  them :  "  The  more  the  muscular 
energies  enter  the  domain  of  the  nerves  they  are  cap- 
tured by  the  organization,  and  compelled  to  serve  the 
purposes  of  sensibility."  2  "  The  genetic  force  is  the 
mother  of  everything  upon  the  earth;  climate  can  only 
assist  or  hinder  it."  *  "  Nature  has  expended  all  her 
store  of  human  types  upon  the  earth,  in  order  that  she 
might  deceive  mortals  throughout  their  lives  by  pro- 
viding for  each  his  own  delight  at  his  own  time  and  at 
his  own  place."  4  "  Epochs  are  linked  together  by  virtue 
of  their  own  nature."  5  Herder  does  not  explain  a 
single  historical  event.  He  orders  and  describes  them 
one  after  another,  and  thus  preserves  an  appearance  of 
logical  consequence.  It  would  be  impossible  to  under- 
stand how  such  a  mass  of  arbitrary  and  often  senseless 
propositions,  and  a  kind  of  florid  fine  writing  that  is 
particularly  intolerable  in  what  purports  to  be  a  scientific 
book,  could  ever  have  been  taken  seriously,  if  it  were 
not  to  some  extent  explained  in  Book  XVII.     In  that 

1  Herder,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  303.  '  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  81. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  265.  *  Ibid.,  p.    335.  '  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  249. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     75 

book  Herder  speaks  of  the  origin  of  Christianity,  the 
nature  of  Christ  and  of  His  doctrines,  with  the  intel- 
lectual freedom  of  a  rationalistic  child  of  the  age  of 
enlightenment.  Such  outspokenness  on  the  part  of  an 
official  naturally  made  a  profound  impression  on  the 
cultivated  classes  in  Germany,  who  were  for  the  most 
part  still  confined  within  the  limits  of  a  narrow  ortho- 
doxy that  looked  askance  upon  the  Christianity  of  Rous- 
seau's Savoyard  Vicar.  But  to  designate  Herder's 
"  Ideas  "  as  a  philosophy  of  history  is  an  irritating  de- 
ception. 

Edward  Gans'  third  "  truly  philosophic  historian," 
Friedrich  von  Schlegel,  need  not  detain  us.  Many  dec- 
ades have  now  elapsed  since  any  sensible  man  troubled 
about  the  dismal  twaddle  of  that  reactionary  fanatic. 
But  the  fourth,  Hegel,  cannot  be  so  readily  dismissed, 
since  his  influence  has  not  yet  completely  disappeared. 
Barth,  who  is  not  on  the  whole  a  Hegelian,  says  in  his 
Preface  to  Hegel's  "  Philosophy  of  History  " :  "  How- 
ever deservedly  and  completely  Hegel's  logic  and 
Natural  Philosophy  may  be  forgotten,  certain  elements 
in  his  general  intellectual  position,  which  are  practically 
developed  in  his  '  Philosophy  of  History,'  do  still 
stoutly  hold  their  ground,  not  only  in  Germany,  but  also 
in  England,  America,  Italy,  and  even  France."  x  Ed- 
ward von  Hartmann  declares  that  "  Hegel's  philosophy 
of  history  has  not  yet  been  superseded,"  and  says  that  he 
regards  "  the  '  Philosophy  of  History  '  as  Hegel's  most 
permanently  valuable  contribution."  Hermann  was  a 
pupil  and  disciple  of  Hegel's,  without  any  individuality 

1  Barth,   "  The   Philosophy  of   History  of   Hegel    and   the   Hegelianj 
down  to  Marx  and  Hartmann:  a  Critical  Study,"  Leipzig,  1890. 


76       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  his  own ;  it  is  therefore  small  matter  for  surprise  that 
he  eulogizes  him  in  terms  of  absurd  exaggeration,  calls 
him  the  "  founder  of  a  systematic  philosophy  of  his- 
tory," and  his  theory  "  the  only  one  worth  consider- 
ing." *  In  the  same  way,  when  Arnold  Ruge  calls  Hegel 
11  the  greatest  and  freest  intellect  of  our  time,"  2  one  has 
to  remember  that  Hegel  was  his  master.  But  even  Flint, 
who  had  no  personal  relations  with  Hegel,  and  who  has 
criticized  him,  though  very  sparingly,  declares:  "It  is 
quite  impossible  to  deny  him  an  extraordinary  wealth  of 
thought  of  the  most  profound  and  delightful  kind."  3 

Let  us  examine  one  or  two  of  the  profound  and  de- 
lightful thoughts  which  find  a  place  in  the  "  Philosophy 
of  History."  Hegel's  philosophy  of  history  rests  upon 
a  single  postulate :  "  The  contribution  of  philosophy  is 
solely  .  .  .  the  simple  thought  of  reason,  reason  as 
governing  the  world,  the  world  process  as  a  rational 
process.  .  .  .  That  reason  is  revealed  in  the  world,  and 
nothing  else  is  there  revealed  except  it,  its  honour  and 
its  glory — this  is  what  has  been  proved  ...  by  philos- 
ophy, and  may  here  be  assumed  as  proved."  *  Nothing 
could,  in  fact,  be  more  convenient.  Hegel's  sole  postu- 
late is  that  history  is  a  rational  process.  But  this 
postulate  is,  in  fact,  precisely  the  thema  probandum;  if 
we  are  ready  to  postulate  it,  to  take  it  as  proved,  we  need 
no  philosophy  of  history.    But  let  us  follow  Hegel  a  step 

1  Hermann,   "  Philosophy  of  History,"  Leipzig,   1870. 

*  Henry  Thomas  Buckle's  "  History  of  Civilization  in  England," 
German  translation  by  Arnold  Ruge,  fourth  authorized  edition, 
Leipzig  and  Heidelberg,  1871,  vol.  i.,  p.  xiv. 

*  Robert  Flint,  "  The  Philosophy  of  History  in  France  and  Ger- 
many," Edinburgh  and  London,  1874,  P-  49^- 

*  Hegel,   op.  cit.,  p.   12. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     77 

farther.  History  is  understood  "  as  the  impulse  of  the 
spirit  to  find  the  Absolute — that  is  to  say,  itself."  Thus, 
Hegel  knows  there  is  a  spirit;  and  it  has  obviously  lost 
itself.  We  are  not  told  where  and  when  this  rather 
incomprehensible  misfortune  took  place.  But,  anyhow, 
the  poor  spirit  then  felt  a  very  natural  impulse  to  find 
itself.  Through  this  impulse  it  created  the  history  of 
the  world,  in  the  course  of  which  it  happily  did  find 
itself.  The  process  is  not  very  clear,  but  the  result  is 
satisfactory.  And  empty  nonsense  like  this  passed,  and 
frequently  still  passes,  for  profundity !  The  goal  of  his- 
tory is  freedom.  "  The  history  of  the  world  is  simply 
the  development  of  the  conception  of  freedom."  This 
looks  promising.  But  Hegel  hastens  to  add :  "  Objective 
freedom  involves  the  subjection  of  the  accidental  will, 
which  has  only  a  formal  existence."  x  What  does  all 
this  amount  to  practically?  A  man  wills  something:  for 
example,  to  start  a  school  where  there  shall  be  no  reli- 
gious teaching.  He  imagines  that  freedom  consists  in 
being  able  to  carry  out  his  will.  Hegel  shows  him  his 
mistake.  His  will  has  only  a  formal  existence  (this 
statement  has  no  meaning,  though  it  makes  one  stop 
and  think)  ;  it  is  accidental ;  he  must  give  it  up ;  the  police 
will  prevent  his  opening  a  free-thinking  school,  and  that 
will  be  real  objective  freedom. 

And  the  details  of  Hegel's  "  Philosophy  of  History  " 
are  equally  remarkable.  It  ought  all  to  be  quoted,  for 
there  are  pearls  on  every  page.  "  Europe  represents 
finality  in  the  history  of  the  world."  2  Let  us  hope  that 
America  will  take  no  offence  at  hearing  this:  "  America 
has  shown,   and  does  still  show,   a  complete  lack  of 

1  Hegel,  op.  cit.,  p.  446.  v  '  Ibid.,  p.  xoa. 


78       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

physical  and  intellectual  power."  *  "  The  subjection  of 
the  Asiatic  kingdoms  to  the  European  is  inevitable."' 
This  judgment  will  no  doubt  convince  the  Japanese  of 
the  great  significance  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy. 
"  The  advantages  of  connecting  the  Mediterranean  with 
the  Arabian  Gulf  and  the  Pacific  are  less  than  might 
have  been  believed,  since  the  difficulties  of  navigation  in 
the  Red  Sea  are  aggravated  by  the  prevalent  north  wind, 
which  renders  it  impossible  to  sail  from  south  to  north 
in  all  save  three  months  of  the  year."  8  Lesseps,  how- 
ever, was  not  a  Hegelian,  and  he  did  not  do  so  badly 
with  his  Suez  Canal.  "  Greek  life  is  essentially  youth- 
ful, and  was  begun  by  one  youth,  concluded  by  an- 
other. ...  It  started  with  Achilles,  the  embodiment  of 
poetic  youth,  and  was  brought  to  a  close  by  Alexander, 
youth  in  its  reality."  4  This  is  very  subtle,  but  softly — 
did  Greek  life  really  begin  with  Achilles,  and  did  it  not 
go  on  for  at  least  a  century  and  a  half  after  Alexander 
the  Great?  And  since  Romulus  was  a  youth,  and  Rom- 
ulus Augustulus  another,  was  not  Roman  life  also 
begun  by  one  youth  and  ended  by  another  ?  And  is  not 
the  whole  Hegelian  phrase,  for  all  its  pretentiousness, 
devoid  of  real  meaning  and  value?  "This  principle 
(Christ)  is  -the  pivot  upon  which  the  world  rotates. 
From  it  history  starts  and  to  it  returns.  God  is  subject, 
Creator  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  yet  it  is  not  in  this  power 
that  revelation  consists,  but  in  the  Sonship  by  which  He 
has  differentiated  His  own  personality.  Spirit  exists 
only  in  so  far  as  it  is  conscious  of  an  object,  and  of  itself 
as  object.     Thus  that  Other  which  God  sets  outside  of 

1  Hegel,  op.  cit.,  p.  77.  *  Ibid.,  p.  147. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  210.  *  Ibid.,  p.  232. 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     79 

Himself  is  Himself;  and  in  His  contemplation  of  Him- 
self as  Other,  love  and  spirit  exist.  We  are  aware  of 
God  as  spirit  when  we  are  aware  of  Him  as  Three  in 
One,  and  it  is  from  this  principle  that  the  history  of  the 
world  has  developed."  1  And  this  is  what  is  put  forward 
as  the  philosophy  of  history — these  ravings  that  might 
have  fallen  from  the  lips  of  a  delirious  monk  whose 
brain  was  fevered  by  the  writings  of  the  Dominicans. 
Hegel  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  appalling  figures  in  the 
intellectual  history  of  the  human  race.  Not  on  his  own 
account — there  have  always  been  cobweb  weavers,  and 
many  of  them  have  wrapped  their  threadbare  thought 
in  a  magnificent  diction  of  their  own  invention — but 
because  of  his  influence  on  his  contemporaries.  One  is 
almost  impelled  to  believe  that  the  faculty  of  judgment 
either  does  not  exist  in  man,  or  is  never  used  by  him, 
when  one  realizes,  after  reading  the  works  of  Hegel, 
that  this  oracular  utterance  of  a  tissue  of  unmeaning 
phantasies,  this  ignorant  jugglery  with  unreal  and  arbi- 
trary words,  called  concepts,  was  received,  not  only  by 
Germany,  but  by  the  world  at  large,  as  a  revelation  of 
the  most  profound  wisdom;  finds,  too,  the  Hegelian 
dialectic,  with  its  arid  and  valueless  formulae  of  thesis, 
antithesis,  and  synthesis,  accepted  by  a  whole  generation 
as  a  law  of  thought,2  and  Hegel  still  regarded  as  a  great 
thinker,  and  named  with  pride  by  the  German  people. 
The  incapacity  of  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  to  apply 

1  Hegel,  op.  cit.,  p.  330. 

1  Krause  could  say,  in  Hegelian  style,  "The  old  world  is  the 
thesis,  the  new  world  the  antithesis,  and  Polynesia  the  synthesis," 
and  must  be  excused  for  having  once  taught,  in  the  good  old  student 
days,  "  Thirst  is  the  thesis,  beer  the  antithesis,  and  the  synthesis  under 
the  table." 


80       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  tests  of  intelligent  criticism  or  discover  the  meaning 
of  words  is  indeed  sufficiently  proved  by  their  acceptance 
of  the  dogmas  of  positive  religion.  But  the  crushing 
significance  of  Hegelianism  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  was 
precisely  the  most  learned  and  distinguished  men  of  his 
time  who  fuddled  themselves  senseless  with  his  frothy 
beverage.  Even  his  critics,  Trendelburg  ("  Logical  In- 
vestigations "),  Ulrici  ("Principles  and  Methods  of 
the  Hegelian  Philosophy  "),  and  Heinrich  Leo  ("  He- 
gelinge  ")  are  all  slaves  of  the  word.  They  talk,  round 
about  Hegel,  make  some  small  reservation  here,  some 
slight  objection  there,  raise  their  eyebrows,  lay  finger  on 
nose,  without  seeing  that  they  are  all  expending  their 
energy  on  a  soap-bubble,  as  the  Hegelian  philosophy 
was  correctly  described  by  Schopenhauer. 

The  four  "  truly  philosophic  historians  "  selected  by 
Edward  Gans  are  really  indistinguishable  from  the 
philosophic  theologians,  whose  history  is  concerned  with 
the  four  world  kingdoms  of  the  prophet  Daniel,  the  six 
days  of  Creation,  and  the  Sabbath  of  Genesis.  The  brief 
and  concise  quotation  from  William  von  Humboldt 
which  Hegel  chose  as  motto  for  his  "  Lectures  on  the 
Philosophy  of  History  " — "  World  history  has  no  mean- 
ing without  world  government " — contains  in  eight 
words  all  the  wisdom  which  the  so-called  philosophic 
historian  spread  into  so  many  volumes.  The  man  who 
thirsts  to  know,  to  understand,  asks,  "  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  all  this  human  activity  recorded  in  history?  "  He 
receives  the  unctrous  answer:  "God  has  His  own  de- 
signs for  men,  and  they  fulfil  them  without  knowing  it." 
He  who  is  not  satisfied  must  go  empty  away. 

However,  since  the  days  of  antiquity,    there  have 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     81 

always  been  a  few  isolated  thinkers  who  did  not  feel  that 
either  human  destiny  or  the  existence  of  the  universe 
and  of  natural  phenomena  was  satisfactorily  explained 
by  this  reference  to  God.  They  observed  human  affairs 
closely  and  without  prejudice,  and  since  they  found  no 
indication  there  of  a  common  purpose,  they  forbore  to 
ascribe  to  history  such  a  purpose  as  would  solve  its 
riddles,  and  confined  themselves  to  searching  for  its 
causes.  In  Hippocrates'  treatise  on  "  Air,  Water,  and 
Places  "  is  the  first  recognition  of  the  relation  between 
human  beings  and  the  places  in  which  they  live.  From 
the  time  of  the  Father  of  Medicine  onwards  the  influence 
of  the  climate  and  the  condition  of  the  soil  upon  men  and 
their  historical  development  has  been  brought  forward 
as  a  subject  for  constant  investigation.  J.  Bodin  *  rec- 
ognized it  as  the  determining  factor  in  all  historical 
events,  and  quoted  Galen  and  Polybius,  who  "  affirmant 
aeris  temperiem  necessario  nos  immutare  "  "  state  the 
necessary  effect  upon  us  of  the  temperature  of  the  air." 
The  excessive  importance  ascribed  to  climate  by  Montes- 
quieu exposed  him  to  the  ridicule  of  Voltaire.  Never- 
theless, both  Turgot,  and  later  on  Herder,  devoted  much 
time  and  attention  to  the  question,  and  Karl  Ritter  made 
it  the  turning-point  of  his  geographical  teaching. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  man  is  influenced  by  his  sur- 
roundings. But  it  is  an  error  to  see  in  them  the  sole 
explanation  of  his  actions  and  development.  Bagehot's  2 
argument  against  those  who  overstate  the  importance  of 

1  Joannes  Bodinus,  "  Methodus  ad  Facilem  Historiarum  Cog- 
nitionera."  Cf.  also  Henri  Baudrillart,  "  J.  Bodin  et  Son  Temps," 
Paris,  1853,  pp.  150,  151. 

*  Walter  Bagehot,  "Physics  and  Politics,"  London,  1872. 


82       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

climate  is  irrefutable.  He  shows  that  in  the  Indian 
Archipelago  and  in  Australia  two  distinct  races  are 
found  inhabiting  the  same  island,  and  draws  the  correct 
inference  that  the  cause  of  their  different  peculiarities 
cannot  be  found  in  the  climate,  which  is  the  same  for 
both.  An  even  more  illuminating  instance  can  be  given. 
The  climate  of  North  America  has  not  substantially 
altered  in  the  last  four  centuries.  About  1500  America 
was  a  wilderness  swept  by  bands  of  barbaric  warriors  in 
a  rudimentary  stage  of  civilization.  By  1900  civiliza- 
tion there  had  reached  the  highest  point  known.  New 
men,  in  fact,  had  come  and  created  a  civilization  such  as 
could  not  have  been  created  by  their  savage  forerunners. 
In  this  case  climate  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  ex- 
planation of  the  change.  To  the  objection  that  civiliza- 
tion as  it  exists  in  America  to-day  is  not  of  native  growth, 
but  an  importation  from  Europe,  and  that  the  influence 
of  climate  is  exerted  on  the  origin  and  not  on  the  spread 
of  civilization,  one  can  reply  that  the  wandering  of  peo- 
ples from  country  to  country  and  continent  to  con- 
tinent constitutes  an  essential  stage  in  history,  to  which 
many  important  events  in  the  development  of  States  and 
institutions,  and  much  in  the  existing  condition  of 
Europe,  America  and  Australia  must  be  referred.  If 
the  influence  of  climate  is  to  be  excluded  from  the  wan- 
derings, because  they  neutralize  its  effect,  it  can  no  longer 
be  regarded  as  a  determining  factor  in  far  the  greatest 
portion  of  history. 

This  cuts  the  ground  from  under  the  feet  of  T.  H. 
Buckle.  Buckle  collected  a  mass  of  valuable  particulars, 
wrote  most  useful  chapters  on  the  insubstantiality  of 
metaphysics  and  theology,  on  the  falsity  of  the  assunvp- 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     83 

tion  of  a  free  will,  on  progress  and  its  conditions,  and  the 
childishness  of  the  older  school  of  historians.  He  has 
done  solid  and  suggestive  work  on  certain  sections  of 
English  history ;  but  his  initial  assumption  that  the  one 
determining  factor  in  the  fate  of  nations  is  climate  and 
the  conditions  of  the  soil,  is  an  obvious  fallacy.  "  If,"  * 
he  says,  "  we  consider  man's  constant  contact  with  the 
external  world,  we  shall  be  convinced  that  there  is  an 
inner  connection  between  the  actions  of  man  and  the 
laws  of  Nature."  This  is  correct.  But  the  "  laws  of 
Nature  "  must  not  be  limited  to  climate  and  the  con- 
ditions of  the  soil.  All  the  laws  of  Nature  affect  man, 
and  among  them  those,  indeed,  principally  that  govern 
his  thought  and  feeling.  There  is  no  doubt  that  man- 
kind was  originally,  like  every  other  sort  of  living  thing, 
a  product  of  the  external  conditions  under  which  he  had 
to  live.  But,  once  adapted  to  the  universal  conditions  of 
existence  on  this  planet,  his  action  is  far  more  governed 
by  acquired  characteristics  than  by  the  peculiarities  of 
different  localities.  Auguste  Comte  is  nearer  to  the 
truth  than  Buckle  when  he  says :  "  The  history  of  society 
is  dominated  by  the  history  of  the  human  spirit."  2  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  all  human  activity  is  determined  by  the 
human  spirit,  which  finds  its  stimuli  in  human  needs. 
It  is  here  that  we  seek  in  the  last  resort  the  key  to  all 
action,  whether  individual  or  general — that  is,  to  history 
itself.  Comte's  famous  division  of  human  development 
into  three  stages,  called  by  him  theological,  metaphysical, 
and  scientific,  based  as  we  have  seen  on  an  idea  of  Vico's, 

1  Buckle,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.,  p.  31. 

1  Auguste    Comte,    "  Cours    de    Philosophic    Positive,"    Paris,    1839, 
rol.  iv.,  p.  f6o. 


84       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

is  arbitrary  in  so  far  as  it  suggests  a  stern  succession  in 
events  really  contemporaneous. 

In  the  theological  period  man's  thought  is  animistic 
and  anthropomorphic :  he  endows  Nature  with  life,  and 
personifies  its  phenomena,  and  invents  gods.  In  the 
metaphysical  his  thought  is  deductive:  he  approaches 
phenomena  with  definite  hypotheses,  in  the  light  of 
which  he  connects  and  co-ordinates  what  he  sees.  In  the 
scientific,  finally,  he  proceeds  by  induction,  observation 
and  experiment,  and  adapts  his  thought  to  the  conditions 
of  reality.  It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  at  some  remote 
period  in  the  past  all  thought  was  theological  or  meta- 
physical in  form,  although  there  are  many  indications 
that  there  have  at  every  time  been  a  few  men 
whose  thought  was  scientific  and  conditioned  by  the 
actual.  One  thing  is  certain:  that  even  at  the  present 
day  the  vast  majority  are  still  in  the  theological  and 
metaphysical  period,  and  only  a  tiny  minority  has 
reached  the  scientific  stage.  Comte's  division  is  only 
valuable  as  a  historical  explanation  in  so  far  as  it  throws 
a  certain  light  on  the  processes  and  development  of 
human  thinking,  and  on  the  ignorance,  superstition,  and 
error  at  the  root  of  so  much  human  activity.  It  is  true 
that  mankind  was  originally  profoundly  ignorant,  and 
acquired  any  knowledge  only  by  a  slow  and  painful  ef- 
fort. But  the  establishment  of  this  fact,  and  the  dis- 
covery of  nomenclature  to  describe  it,  does  not  in  itself 
entitle  Comte  to  be  regarded  as  a  philosophic  historian. 

Karl  Marx  is  in  one  sense  the  antithesis,  in  another 
the  complement,  of  Auguste  Comte.  The  latter  centres 
the  whole  mechanism  of  history  in  the  human  spirit,  of 
whose  movements  it  is  the  effect;  the  former  views  all 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     85 

historical  events  merely  as  the  result  of  man's  endeavour 
to  supply  his  immediate  physical  needs.  According  to 
him,  the  law  of  property  determines  all  the  forms  of 
society  and  the  State.  The  desire  for  possession  is  the 
driving  force  in  human  activity,  and  the  struggle  for 
earthly  goods  at  once  the  goal  of  all  politics,  the  mean- 
ing of  all  institutions,  and  the  cause  of  every  legal  suit.1 
Vico  had  regarded  history  as  substantially  a  conflict  be- 
tween rich  and  poor,  although  he  admitted  the  force  of 
other  considerations.  Marx  is  certainly  on  the  right 
track  in  looking  upon  man's  needs  as  the  cause  of  his 
actions,  but  he  makes  the  mistake  of  conceiving  of  need 
in  too  limited  a  sense.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to 
have  his  hunger  and  thirst  satisfied,  and  his  body  clothed 
and  adorned;  he  has  intellectual  and  spiritual  needs  that 
are  as  a  rule  far  more  acute  than  his  merely  vegetative 
ones.  The  critics  of  the  Marxian  view  of  history  have 
pointed  to  numerous  important  events  that  cannot  with- 
out violence  be  referred  to  strictly  economic  causes. 
Alexander's  conquests,  the  occupation  of  Spain  by  the 
Moors,  and  the  seven  hundred  years  of  war  there 
against  their  domination,  the  Hundred  Years'  War  be- 
tween France  and  England,  the  Napoleonic  campaigns, 
the    Puritan   settlement    in    North   America — certainly 

1  Marx  himself  sums  up  his  theory  as  follows:  "The  sum  total 
of  these  relations  of  production  constitutes  the  economic  structure  of 
society — the  real  foundation  on  which  rise  legal  and  political  super- 
structures, and  to  which  correspond  definite  forms  of  social  con- 
sciousness. The  mode  of  production  in  material  life  determines  the 
general  character  of  the  social,  political,  and  spiritual  processes  of 
life.  It  is  not  the  consciousness  of  men  that  determines  their  existence, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  their  social  existence  determines  their  conscious- 
ness" (Karl  Marx,  "Criticism  of  Political  Economy,"  edited  by  Karl 
Kautsky,  Stuttgart,   1897,  Preface,  p.  xi.). 


86       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

none  of  these  events  originated  in  the  acquisition  or 
division  of  property. 

With  naive  anthropomorphism  men  believed  that 
their  desire  to  comprehend  the  meaning  of  life  and  of 
the  world  could  be  satisfied  from  the  contemplation  of 
the  history  of  the  world,  although  humanity  occupies  no 
larger  place  in  the  universe  than  any  order  of  ferns  or 
insects,  and  the  history  of  mankind  can  go  as  far  and  no 
farther  towards  the  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  universe 
than  the  life  and  development  of  the  polar  bear  or  the 
cockchafer.  The  customary  philosophy  of  history  pre- 
tends to  discover  in  the  history  of  mankind  an  answer  to 
the  eternal  questions  whence,  whither,  why,  and  where- 
fore, and  ascribes  to  it  a  purpose  comparable  to  the  crud- 
est theological  inventions  of  primitive  man.  This  teleo- 
logical  philosophy  of  history  has  no  scientific  value, 
and  may  be  completely  neglected  by  any  reasonable  man. 
Less  discreditable  to  human  intelligence  is  that  causal 
philosophy  of  history  which  neither  finds  nor  seeks  for 
any  purpose  in  history,  and  is  modestly  content  to  in- 
vestigate the  causes  of  human  action.  Hitherto  its  re- 
sults have  certainly  been  very  incomplete  and  dubious, 
and  it  has  systematized  no  convincing  explanation  of  the 
laws  of  human  development  and  the  course  of  historical 
events. 

Every  philosophic  historian  who  is  what  is  called 
materialistic — everyone,  that  is  to  say,  who  on  principle 
refrains  from  the  dreams  or  the  delirium  of  metaphysics 
— tends  to  see  man  in  one  aspect  only,  and  not  man  as  a 
whole,  as  he  lives,  and  moves,  and  has  his  being,  as  he 
suffers,  seeks,  and  loses  his  way.  This  is  true  even  of 
Marx,  even  of  Buckle.     But  a  philosophy  of  history 


CUSTOMARY  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY     87 

which  thus  fails  to  present  the  whole  living  man,  with 
all  his  idiosyncrasies,  is  necessarily  false.  For  it  is  this 
whole  living  man  who  composes  the  history  which  the 
philosophy  of  history  has  to  explain. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

A  true  understanding  of  the  matter  and  meaning  of 
history  is  not  to  be  obtained  either  by  the  anecdotal 
method,  which  records  events,  and  nothing  but  events, 
with  the  delight  of  the  gossiping  barber;  or  by  the  in- 
tellectual method,  which  seeks  to  discover  causes  and 
events,  and  explains  them  in  a  more  or  less  childish, 
short-sighted,  and  arbitrary  fashion;  or  the  philo- 
sophical, which,  while  claiming  to  deduce  universal  laws, 
a  general  plan,  direction,  and  goal  from  the  multitude  of 
individual  instances,  has  really  only  introduced  subjective 
preconceptions  that  are  often  of  the  most  terrifyingly 
foolish  kind.  All  these  methods  must  fail,  because  all 
alike  devote  a  diligence  and  devotion  that  is  really  piti- 
able to  the  study  of  the  inessential,  while  their  eyes  are 
firmly  closed  to  what  is  essential.  The  historian  en- 
deavours to  realize  the  circumstances  of  an  individual,1 
of  a  definite  group  or  community,  to  discover  by  accurate 
investigation  the  exact  condition  under  which  a  particular 
event  took  place.  He  tries  to  find  the  names  of  persons 
and  places,  dates  and  turning-points  in  a  man's  career. 

1  Thomas  Carlyle,  "  On  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,  and  the  Heroic 
in  History,"  Lecture  I.  (I  quote  from  an  edition  in  one  volume; 
undated;  Ward,  Lock  and  Co.;  p.  3):  "For,  as  I  take  it,  Universal 
History  ...  is  at  bottom  the  History  of  the  Great  Men  who  have 
worked  here." 

88 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY   89 

But  what  is  the  object  of  all  this  concrete  individual 
knowledge  ?  It  may  afford  aesthetic  satisfaction,  but  not 
real  knowledge. 

If  history  is  to  be  anything  more  than  a  mere  collec- 
tion of  stories  and  tales,  if  it  is  to  do  anything  more  than 
while  away  the  tedium  of  the  reader  like  any  other 
imaginative  story,  it  must  give  a  picture  of  the  life  of 
mankind:  must  show  the  means  by  which  the  human 
species  has  gradually  occupied  the  earth's  surface  and 
established  itself  upon  it,  the  ends  at  which  it  aims,  the 
means  by  which  it  pursues  them ;  the  forces,  internal  or 
external,  that  determine  its  actions;  the  emotional  and 
intellectual  elements  of  its  consciousness,  the  impulses 
that  dominate  the  habits  that  control  it,  and  the  means 
by  which  it  satisfies  its  needs.  In  one  word,  history,  if 
it  is  to  teach  anything  worth  knowing,  must  not  be  the 
history  of  this  or  that  individual,  but  of  humanity. 

The  only  point  of  view  from  which  sound  conclusions 
are  to  be  obtained  as  to  the  action  and  existence  of 
humanity  is  that  from  which  it  is  viewed  as  a  part  by 
the  natural  order,  and  not  apart  from  and  elevated  above 
it.  Humanity  is  one  among  the  animal  species  that 
contend  together  for  the  possession  of  the  earth,  or  di- 
vide it  among  themselves,  without  disturbing  competi- 
tion; only  it  is,  by  reason  of  its  more  highly  developed 
brain  and  nerves,  more  capable  than  any  other  of  acquir- 
ing very  favourable  conditions  by  adaptation  to,  and 
alteration  of,  the  given  environment.  What  we  want, 
then,  is  to  observe  its  behaviour  under  the  most  varied 
circumstances,  keeping  attention  focussed  on  attributes 
of  universal  significance,  and  not  on  such  so-called  "  his- 
torical "   facts  as  the   Christian   and  surname   of   any 


9o       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

individual,  the  place  and  time  of  his  birth,  and  the  bench 
on  which  he  sat  at  school  before  he  got  into  trousers. 
Suppose  we  are  investigating,  not  man,  but  some  other 
animal  species.  To  avoid  transgressing  into  the  regions 
of  imagination,  I  will  not  say  suppose  an  inhabitant  of 
Mars  came  to  earth,  not  with  any  such  hostile  intention 
as  Wells  ascribes  to  our  planetary  neighbours,  but  simply 
in  order  to  inform  himself  about  the  ways  and  habits  of 
the  highest  living  species  upon  this  earth.  Let  us  rather 
take  any  animal  species.  For  example,  take  the  ants, 
which  have  been  so  lovingly  and  thoroughly  studied  by 
Huber,  Forel,  Lubbock,  and  Wasmann.  We  can  watch 
them  building  streets  and  towns;  see  them  engaged  on 
warlike  or  predatory  expeditions;  see  their  domestic  and 
family  life,  their  social  institutions,  their  class  system, 
the  animals  they  keep  for  milking,  their  cultivation  of 
nourishing  mushrooms.  All  this  is  worth  knowing:  it 
has  a  meaning  and  an  interest  for  us.  But  would  it  occur 
to  any  investigator  to  record  with  painful  exactitude  the 
day  and  spot  in  a  certain  wood  where  the  battle  was 
fought  between  the  armies  of  the  Formica  rufa  and 
Lasius  alienus,  and  the  names  of  the  leaders  and  heroes 
on  either  side;  the  duration  of  the  reign  of  a  certain 
queen  in  any  heap,  the  manner  in  which  the  youthful 
swarms  are  driven  from  the  parent  heap,  and  when  they 
founded  new  heaps,  etc.?  Had  the  students  of  ant  life 
lost  themselves  in  such  tedious  detail,  and  attempted  to 
relate  the  lives  of  individual  ants,  and  their  accidental 
relationships,  encounters,  and  adventures,  instead  of 
being  held  in  high  estimation  for  their  knowledge  of 
nature  they  would  have  been  laughed  at  as  fools,  even 
had  they  written  most  poetical  biographies  of  ants  in 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY    91 

the  approved  anthropomorphic  fashion.  In  so  far  as 
they  were  successful  therein,  our  interest  would  have 
been  aroused,  not  by  ants,  but  by  men  dressed  up  and 
disguised  as  ants;  and  while  we  might  once  more  have 
enjoyed  the  artistic  creation,  we  should  have  acquired  no 
knowledge.  The  ant  student  will  recognize  that  every 
activity  of  the  species  under  observation  displays  certain 
common  traits,  and  responds  in  a  certain  regular  way  to 
given  circumstances;  that  certain  characteristics  of  sen- 
sation, will,  and  action  are  common  to  all  the  individuals 
composing  it.  He  will  then  endeavour  to  discover  the 
common  element,  and  prove  its  constant  recurrence  amid 
the  changing  conditions  of  time  and  place,  while  he  neg- 
lects the  accidental  individuals  in  whom  the  universal 
characteristics  of  the  species  happen  to  be  expressed.  In 
this  way  he  can  extract  what  is  really  worth  knowing 
from  the  swarming  activity  of  the  ant,  and  give  us  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  its  life. 

It  may  be  objected  that  what  he  gives  us  is  natural 
history  but  not  history,  and  the  two  ideas  must  not  be 
confounded.  "  History,"  says  Barth,1  "  is  the  history 
of  man  as  distinct  from  natural  history:  the  distinction 
is  more  than  two  thousand  years  old."  The  distinction 
is  artificial;  it  has  no  real  existence.  The  answer  to 
Barth's  further  statement  that:  "The  first  difference 
between  natural  and  human  history  is  that  the  former  is 
concerned  with  the  species,  the  latter  with  society 
within  the  species,"  is  that  society  is  the  condition  of  the 
existence  of  the  species,  the  form  it  has  evolved  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  just  as  the  ant-heap  is  for  the  ants, 

1  Dr.  Paul  Barth,  "  The  Philosophy  of  History  as  Sociology,"  Leip- 
zig, i897»  P-  2. 


92       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

which  do  not  live  as  isolated  individuals,  and  that  the 
one  species  can  no  more  be  described  apart  from  society 
than  the  other  apart  from  the  heap.  At  least,  beyond 
a  certain  stage  in  development,  life  in  society  is  identical 
with  the  life  of  the  human  species.  The  ideas  are  in- 
separable ;  and  there  is  no  justification  for  the  antithesis 
between  the  history  and  natural  history  of  man. 

Equally  fallacious  are  the  other  apparent  objections 
to  the  view  that,  in  investigating  and  recording  human 
development,  the  individual,  as  accidental,  must  be 
neglected,  and  attention  devoted  to  the  universal 
peculiarities  of  the  human  species  that  are  displayed  in 
individual  action.  The  reason  why  the  fate  of  any 
particular  ant  appears  to  us  of  no  importance  when  we 
are  studying  the  species  biologically  is  simply  that  we  are 
not  ants.  If  we  were,  we  should  not  be  satisfied  to  know 
that  wars  have  been  waged,  battles  fought,  and  captives 
taken  by  different  nations  among  the  ants,  and  we  should 
also  seek  to  know  the  fate  met  by  this  or  that  ant  in 
battle  or  slavery,  and  the  details  of  this  or  that  cam- 
paign. The  inhabitants  of  Mars  may  view  human 
history  with  the  detachment  with  which  we  regard  the 
existence  of  the  ant ;  but  since  historical  research  is  not, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  undertaken  by  Martians,  but  by  men, 
it  is  natural  that,  instead  of  confining  themselves  to  the 
observacion  and  record  of  features  of  universal  appli- 
cation, they  should  dwell  on  the  accidental  incidents  of 
concrete  persons,  and  enter  into  all  the  ins  and  outs  of 
their  earthly  existence. 

This  fact  involves  the  naive  admission  that  history,  in 
so  far  as  it  clings  to  concrete  events  and  individual 
action,  does  not  contain  objective  truths  of  universal 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY    93 

application.  Instead  of  affording  scientific  knowledge 
of  the  life  of  the  human  species,  it  tends  to  reflect  the 
subjective  emotions  of  attraction  and  repulsion.  Sym- 
pathy with  certain  individuals,  satisfaction  or  dissatis- 
faction with  certain  events,  tends,  in  a  word,  to 
reproduce  the  psychical  and  emotional  atmosphere  of  a 
stupid  tea-party.  In  so  far  it  is  no  more  than  a  rather 
solemn  form  of  gossip,  and  in  no  sense  that  natural  his- 
tory which  it  must  be  if  it  is  to  deserve  the  attention  of 
earnest  seekers  after  truth. 

The  attempt  to  regard  the  life  of  man  in  space  and 
time  from  the  same  objective  standpoint  as  that  of  the 
ant  meets  with  another  objection,  that  is  brought  for- 
ward more  generally,  and  frequently  with  a  good  deal  of 
feeling.  It  is  said  that  to  place  mankind  on  the  same 
level  as  any  other  animal  species,  high  or  low,  is  an  insult 
to  the  dignity  of  man.  The  spiritual  existence  of  man- 
kind and  of  every  individual  man  sets  him  in  a  world 
apart,  with  its  own  riddles  to  be  answered  and  its  own 
far-reaching  truths  to  be  discovered.  Animal  life  offers 
nothing  of  comparable  significance.  This  indignant 
claim  is  but  a  belated  and  impotent  outburst  of  the  same 
anthropomorphic  vanity  that  once  rose  in  wrath  against 
the  teaching  of  Copernicus:  the  idea  that  the  earth 
inhabited  by  man  was  not  the  centre  of  the  universe,  but 
merely  a  subordinate  member  of  a  system  regulated  by 
the  sun,  a  handful  of  dust  lost  in  the  endlessness  of  the 
All.  Nowadays  the  idea  of  our  planet  as  predominant  is 
left  to  childish  ignorance  and  obsolete  theology.  But 
there  was  another  outburst  when  the  comfortable  as- 
sumption of  the  supreme  importance  and  significance  of 
the  human  race  was  again  disturbed  by  Linnzeus's  in- 


94       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

elusion  of  primates — apes,  lemurs,  and,  oddly  enough, 
even  bats — in  one  order.  It  grew  to  a  tempest  when 
Darwin  gave  definiteness  to  the  Linnaean  idea  by  main- 
taining a  blood-relationship  between  men  and  monkeys, 
which  has  since  been  proved  by  Uhlenhuth's  biochemical 
experiments  on  serum  reaction. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  natural  science  it  is  proved 
beyond  dispute  that  the  human  family  belongs  to  a 
certain  family  of  animals,  and  through  it  is  connected 
with  all  animals,  and  probably  with  all  living  things.  Big 
words  may  be  used  by  those  who  fulminate  against  such 
a  relationship,  but  the  proofs  of  it  are  incontestable.  It 
is  therefore  accepted  that  man  is  an  animal  like  any  other 
animal,  so  far  as  corporeal  faculty  and  organic  activity 
goes.  But  that  is  all.  The  consequences  are  not  faced. 
Very  unwillingly,  and  after  long  struggles,  the  geocentric 
conception  was  abandoned;  with  an  entire  disregard  of 
logic  the  anthropocentric  is  still  maintained.  In  spite 
of  Darwin  and  Uhlenhuth,  historians  and  historic 
philosophers  still  regard  man  as  the  central  fact  of 
creation,  as  the  goal  to  which  everything  in  nature  works, 
and  in  which  it  finds  its  significance.  Did  man  really 
dominate  the  universe,  or  even  the  earth,  in  this  manner, 
every  detail  of  his  life  and  activity  would  acquire  an 
importance  to  which  that  of  no  other  living  thing  would 
be  comparable.  But  it  is  not  so.  It  is  a  childish  illusion 
by  which  man  tries  to  hold  the  field  against  the  advance 
of  science. 

Human  vanity  and  prejudice  apart,  the  human  species 
appears  as  one  special  form  of  life  upon  the  earth  and  in 
the  universe,  influencing  natural  forces  and  the  destiny 
of  our  planet  no  more  and  no  less  than  an  order  of  flies 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     95 

or  mosses.  There  are  species  enough  on  the  earth  whose 
influence  has  been  far  greater  than  man's  upon  the 
minutiae  that  compose  the  external  surface  of  our  planet : 
its  main  lines  remain  unaffected  by  any  of  them.  Tiny 
creatures,  often  invisible  to  the  naked  eye — fora- 
miniferaea,  bryozoa,  coral  polypi,  shellfish,  and  crustaceae 
— have  built  islands,  heaped  up  mountains,  created  or 
transformed  continents,  directed  winds  and  currents, 
determined  the  courses  of  streams,  fixed  boundaries  to 
the  ocean,  and  influenced  the  climate  of  whole  regions  of 
the  world.  Compared  with  this,  all  man's  creations  and 
transformations  sink  into  insignificance.  The  few 
isthmuses  he  has  dug  through,  the  few  canals  he  has 
constructed,  the  few  tunnels  he  has  made  through  the 
mountains,  are  puny  undertakings  in  comparison  with  the 
vast  stratifications  of  chalk  and  mussel-shells;  and  many 
a  South  Sea  atoll  shows  more  real  creative  effort,  meas- 
ured in  miles,  than  any  of  man's  undertakings.  Were  all 
life  extinguished  upon  earth,  there  would  remain  far 
fewer  traces  of  the  former  existence  of  man,  after  the 
stone,  wood,  and  metal  erections  had  rotted  away  from 
its  surface,  than  of  the  animals,  who  are  so  much  more 
numerous  and  so  much  more  deeply  fixed.  And  at  the 
last  analysis,  human  life,  traced  from  its  animal  origin, 
through  all  the  stages  of  its  historical  development  down 
to  its  final  inevitable  extinction,  appears  as  no  more  than 
an  inessential  episode  of  cosmic  life :  one  of  the  countless 
epiphenomena  accompanying  the  complex  of  eternal 
forces  at  work,  and  no  more  important  than  this  or  that 
flickering  of  the  northern  light,  than  the  growth  and 
subsidence  of  a  mountain,  the  rise  and  disappearance  of 
a  comet. 


96       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

No  student  of  natural  science  now  believes  in  the 
eternity  of  the  earth  and  the  planetary  system.  Obser- 
vation of  all  the  available  processes  of  the  universe  com- 
pels the  assumption  of  an  endless  creation  and  disruption 
of  the  combinations  we  call  planets.  The  earth,  like 
every  other  mass,  body,  sun,  or  solar  system,  had  a 
beginning  as  such,  and  will  have  an  end  as  such,  what- 
ever the  movements  may  have  been  that  caused  it  to 
come  into  being,  that  will  continue  after  it  has  ceased  to 
be.  And  man  will  not  survive  the  earth.  This  is 
obvious  except  to  the  spiritualists,  who  believe  that  the 
species,  incarnated  in  astral  bodies,  will  be  translated  to 
another  star  when  existence  upon  the  earth  is  no  longer 
possible  for  it.  Long  before  the  earth  is  dissolved  into 
primary  ions,  long  before  it  scorifies  or  freezes,  all 
differentiated  forms  of  life  will,  in  all  probability,  be 
extinct  upon  it.  This  I  hold  in  spite  of  a  strong  con- 
viction that,  however  unfavourable  natural  conditions 
may  be,  man  is  capable  of  adaptations  as  yet  undreamed 
of.  But  when  the  human  race  is  extinct,  when  the  last 
trace  of  its  existence,  the  last  bone,  the  last  bit  of  human 
handiwork,  has  disappeared,  and  the  earth  has  followed 
after  the  other  stars  in  the  eternal  cycle  of  generation 
and  dissolution,  what,  then,  will  be  the  significance  of 
that  human  history  the  orthodox  historian  obstinately 
places  above  and  outside  of  the  processes  of  nature? 

Such  a  consideration  involves  the  standpoint  of  eter- 
nity; from  which,  of  course,  only  the  eternal  can  be 
regarded.  Humanity,  however,  is  finite.  The  views  of 
a  small  portion  of  this  finitude  such  as  ourselves  can  only 
have  a  value  when  they  are  accommodated  to  our  limited 
vision.     Philosophically,  we  are  entitled  to  an  interest 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY    97 

in  whatever  happens  to  humanity,  although  we  know 
that  it  must  one  day  pass  away,  and  with  it  all  that 
thought  of  which  it  was  the  object;  to  an  interest  in 
whatever  happens  to  ourselves,  although  we  stand  in 
the  shadow  of  death,  and  the  day  must  come  when  we 
shall  cease  to  be,  ourselves  and  all  that  we  have  felt  and 
thought  and  made  our  intellectual  possession.  But  this 
interest  is  various  in  its  nature,  as  are  the  needs  from 
which  it  arises  and  the  satisfactions  that  it  demands. 
We  have  seen  that,  when  aroused  by  anecdotes  relative 
to  a  particular  time  and  place,  it  arises  partly  out  of  a 
natural  feeling  of  sympathy  with  whatever  affects  human 
na.ture,  and  partly  from  the  hunger  of  the  imagination 
for  anything  extraordinary,  excessive  or  surprising,  in 
which  case  the  interest  is  purely  emotional  and  closely 
akin  to  the  aesthetic.  It  is  the  beauty,  not  the  truth,  of 
the  anecdote,  then,  that  matters:  a  preference  for  the 
probable  or  the  possible  exists  only  in  so  far  as  the 
grown-up  finds  his  aesthetic  appreciation  impeded  by  the 
doubt  and  difficulty  created  in  his  mind  by  an  anecdote 
that  is  palpably  fictitious.  Schiller  has  expressed  this 
emotional  and  aesthetic  interest:  "  Only  what  has  never 
happened  never  can  grow  out  of  date."  It  again  ex- 
plains why  people  cling  more  closely  to  stories  of  things 
"  that  have  never  happened  "  than  to  any  well-authenti- 
cated narration  of  the  dry  bones  of  truth,  and  prefer  the 
unreliable  but  brilliant  historian,  or,  more  properly, 
story-teller,  to  the  conscientious  investigator,  who  ven- 
tures on  no  statement  of  which  he  is  not  practically 
certain.  But  over  and  above  this  emotional  and  aesthetic 
interest  there  is  another — the  scientific  interest — which 
has  no  use  for  concrete  anecdotes  of  a  merely  entertain- 


98       THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ing  and  moving  kind,  if  they  have  nothing  to  teach  and 
represent  no  general  truth.  I  am  not  forgetting  that 
even  this  intellectual  interest  is  originally  rooted  in  the 
feelings.  It  is,  however,  differentiated  from  the  merely 
emotional,  not  only  quantitatively,  but  qualitatively,  and 
stands  in  much  the  same  relation  to  it  that  artificial 
attention,  directed  by  judgment,  and  will,  occupies 
towards  the  purely  natural  response  awakened  by  imme- 
diate sense  impressions,  and  sustained  by  sensations  and 
feelings.  Ordinary  history,  with  its  tedious  circumlocu- 
tions and  disproportionate  interest  in  what  is  inessen- 
tial, appears  wholly  trivial  from  the  point  of  view  of 
such  an  intellectual  interest,  and  the  philosophy  upon 
which  it  rests  wholly  false,  in  so  far  as  it  aims,  not 
at  drawing  conclusions  as  to  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  man,  but  at  throwing  over  it  a  net  of  artificial 
fancies. 

The  inquiring  mind  of  man,  hungry  for  knowledge, 
and  dimly  aware  that  written  history  has  hitherto  failed 
to  give  it  what  it  wants,  has  attempted  in  a  number  of 
different  ways  to  get  at  the  sources  of  real  information. 
Thus,  out  of  the  desire  to  understand  the  whole  range  of 
man's  natural  history,  there  have  arisen  a  group  of 
special  sciences  devoted  to  the  study  of  man.  Anatomy 
gives  instruction  as  to  his  structure,  physiology  as  to  the 
workings  of  his  organic  mechanism.  In  the  course  of 
their  development  these  two  branches  have  expanded 
into  comparative  anatomy  and  general  biology.  They 
have  ceased  to  be  sciences  of  man  in  becoming  sciences 
of  life  in  general,  in  which  man  takes  his  place  beside 
many  other  living  forms,  and  in  so  far  they  do  not  belong 
to  our  subject.    A  specifically  human  character  was  long 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY    99 

maintained — longer  than  by  anatomy  or  physiology — by 
psychology,  which  tries  to  lay  highroads  across  the  world 
of  consciousness.  But  it,  too,  has  recently  entered  the 
wider  sphere  of  animal  psychology,  thus  following  the 
universal  tendency  that  directs  all  branches  of  the  sci- 
ence of  man  that  really  have  knowledge  for  their  object 
to  transcend  the  boundaries  that  limit  them  to  him,  and 
claim  to  be  co-ordinated  with  universal  being  and  the 
world  as  a  whole,  where  man  and  humanity  play  but  a 
subordinate  part.  Anatomy,  physiology,  and  psychology 
have  collected  the  positive  material  out  of  which  a 
human  science  has  already  been  built  up — anthro- 
pology— which  does  for  him  what  zoology  does  for 
any  animal  species.  More  dubious  is  the  position  of  the 
subdivision  of  anthropology,  known  as  ethnology,  the 
study  of  peoples.  It  is  a  hybrid,  half  natural,  half  social 
science.  Proceeding  from  the  assumption  that  each 
people  presents  a  definite  unity  created  by  nature,  it 
endeavours  to  describe,  and  where  possible  to  elucidate, 
the  characteristics  of  peoples,  the  distinctions  and  resem- 
blances between  them,  the  changes  they  have  undergone 
in  time  and  place.  But  the  assumption  is  not  proved, 
and  is  very  difficult  of  proof :  it  is  far  more  probable  that 
peoples  are  artificial  and  purely  political  creations,  and 
that  their  origin,  transformation,  and  destruction,  slow 
though  it  may  often  be,  is  the  work  of  man.  Thus  any 
description  of  them  has  no  really  scientific  interest,  and 
can  teach  nothing  of  mankind  that  is  not  more  com- 
pletely and  searchingly  revealed  by  anthropology.  From 
this  specious,  fundamental  error  of  regarding  as  a 
natural  organism  what  is  really  the  work  of  man  ethnol- 
ogy naturally  obtains  a  number  of  false  conclusions:  it 


ioo     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

introduces  preconceived  opinions  into  the  observation 
and  description  of  peoples,  characterizes  them  by 
factitious  traits,  and  presents  a  false  picture  by  means  of 
statistical  averages  and  audacious  generalizations,  all  by 
way  of  deducing  a  national  psychology  that  does  not 
correspond  with  reality,  and  altogether  is  little  adapted 
to  the  spread  of  knowledge.  The  extension  of  history 
into  the  unrecorded  past  has  led  to  the  creation  of  a 
special  branch — primitive  history — which  differs  from 
history  principally  in  so  far  as,  in  the  absence  of  any 
proved  and  provable  evidence,  it  has  of  necessity  to  do 
without  exact  delineation  of  isolated  events,  the  period 
at  which  they  happened,  and  the  persons  actively  or 
passively  concerned  in  them,  and  to  confine  itself  to  the 
general  features  of  the  existence  of  human  individuals 
and  groups.  Primitive  history  see!  ;  to  knjw  the  physical 
constitution  of  early  man,  his  intellectual  capacity  and 
manner  of  speaking,  living,  feeding,  and  dressing,  his 
progress  in  crafts,  art  and  knowledge,  his  loves  and 
hates,  battles,  alliances,  wandering3  and  settlements; 
ignorance  of  the  names  of  particular  leaders,  warriors 
and  magicians  does  not  disturb  it.  Any  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  such  names  as  might  possibly  come  its  way,  by  a 
collocation  of  circumstances  that  is  indeed  almost  incon- 
ceivable, could  add  nothing  to  the  edifice  of  primitive 
history,  significant  as  it  might  be  for  the  philologist. 
The  results  which  it  can  give  are  a  real  contribution  to 
the  natural  history  of  the  human  species,  and  not  a  mere 
rubbish-heap  of  anecdotes,  in  which  what  is  essential 
is  overlaid  and  hidden  by  what  is  unimportant.  When 
the  methods  of  primitive  history  are  applied  to  human- 
ity as  it  is  in  the  present,  and  as  records  reveal  it  to  have 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     ior 

been  in  the  past,  we  have  the  history  of  morals;  and 
when  we  leave  the  material  forms  and  conditions  of 
existence,  and  envisage  the  phenomena  presented  by  the 
life  of  man  in  groups,  and  when  regularly  organized 
into  societies,  we  see  rising  before  us  the  science  of 
sociology,  new,  and  as  yet  confined  within  no  strict  l'mi- 
tations.  Sociology  does  really  deserve  the  name  of 
science,  since  it  investigates  thr  laws  expressed  in  the 
form  and  operation,  the  morphology  and  dynamics,  of 
human  life  when  organized  in  society  and  the  State,  and 
tries  to  understand  how  and  why  society  and  the  State 
have  arisen  and  assumed  the  forms  they  do  as  a  matter 
of  fact  present. 

The  purpose  of  sociology  is,  by  definition,  closely  akin 
to  that  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  but  there  is  between 
them  a  fundamental  difference  of  method.  Whether 
inevitably  or  no,  the  philosophy  of  history  has,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  always  been  deductive,  while  sociology  is 
inductive.  The  former  is  subjective  dreaming,  the  latter 
the  collection  and  arrangement  of  objective  fact,  from 
which  the  mere  co-operation  of  a  number  of  students 
tends  almost  automatically  to  sift  out  the  subjective 
points  of  view  which  do  undoubtedly  exist.  The  one 
handles  its  facts  with  despotic  violence,  the  other  treats 
them  with  respect  and  deference.  One  can  foresee  that 
when  sociology  has  fully  mastered  and  analyzed  its  ma- 
terial, it  will  completely  relegate  the  philosophy  of  his- 
tory to  a  position  alongside  of  dogmatic  and  apologetic 
theology,  in  that  museum  of  human  errors  to  which 
augury,  astrology,  the  interpretation  of  dreams,  and  all 
the  other  silly  games  that  once  passed  as  sciences,  have 
already  been  consigned.    Wundt  is  a  great  thinker,  but 


io2      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

when  he  called  the  philosophy  of  history  the  becoming, 
and  sociology  the  being,  of  society,  he  was  guilty  of  an 
artificial  distinction  between  identical  things  that  must, 
with  all  respect,  be  called  a  mere  play  upon  words.  An 
understanding  of  the  being  of  society  includes  a  knowl- 
edge of  its  becoming,  and,  conversely,  becoming  can  only 
be  understood  from  such  a  correct  observation  of  being 
as  shows  it  to  have  been  determined  at  all  periods  of 
human  history  by  the  same  forces  and  laws,  those  forces 
and  laws  which  have  also  been  the  condition  of  becoming. 
To  take  an  analogous  case,  the  laws  of  geology  were  not 
understood  until  it  was  realized  that  throughout  the  past, 
as  far  back  as  the  original  formation  of  the  earth,  the 
same  chemical,  physical,  and  mechanical  laws  prevailed 
which  are  operative  in  this  planet  to-day,  and  that  the 
most  ancient  strata  were  formed  in  the  same  manner  as 
those  which  have  just  appeared  beneath  our  eyes.  Soci- 
ology is  destined  to  occupy  the  highest  place  in  the 
encyclopaedia  of  human  sciences,  since  it  co-ordinates  the 
results  of  all  the  rest ;  it  is  the  keystone,  maintaining  and 
crowning  their  span ;  it  is  the  completion  of  anthropology 
on  the  intellectual  side. 

Barth  *  sums  up  the  relation  between  sociology  and 
history  in  the  dazzling  formula :  "  History  seems  to  me 
to  be  concrete  sociology  in  the  sense  in  which  a  drama  is 
concrete  psychology."  This  is  only  true  within  limita- 
tions. A  drama  is  a  poetic  invention.  It  could  only 
serve  as  a  source  for  the  serious  study  of  human  char- 
acter were  it  that  faithful  reflection  of  actuality  which 
it  practically  never  is,  even  when  the  poet  has  genius 

1  Dr.  Paul  Barth,  "  The  Philosophy  of  History  as  Sociology,"  Leip- 
zig. 1897,  P-  »▼• 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     103 

enough  to  penetrate  the  hidden  depths  of  character,  and 
instinctively  divine  the  complicated  interaction  of  the 
forces  at  work  there.  Zola  imagined,  when  he  plunged 
his  invented  characters  in  a  flood  of  invented  action,  that 
he  was  following  the  method  of  Claude  Bernard,  and 
making  scientific  experiments.  His  "  experimental 
romances  "  are  the  outcome  of  this  remarkable  idea  of 
his.  Barth  has  some  sort  of  experimental  drama  in  his 
mind. 

Certainly,  however,  it  would  never  occur  to  any 
scientific  psychologist  to  use  a  drama  as  material  for 
research,  and  obtain  from  it  any  valid  conclusions,  even 
about  the  psychology  of  its  author.  History  can  only 
be  called  concrete  sociology  in  so  far  as  the  historian  is 
certain  of  the  events  which  he  describes,  and  conscious  of 
the  sociological  mechanism  that  moves  his  human 
marionettes — two  assumptions  that  have  hitherto  hardly 
ever  been  realized.  But  if  Barth  simply  means  that 
history,  if  correctly  narrated,  is  sociological  casuistry — 
is,  that  is  to  say,  a  collection  of  examples  illustrating  the 
laws  established  by  sociology  as  governing  the  being  and 
activity  of  man — one  can  agree  with  him,  for  to  this 
extent  the  formula  contains  its  own  proof.  Concrete 
historical  narrative,  that  is  to  say,  is  only  useful  to  en- 
liven the  austerity  of  sociology,  to  make  it  more  at- 
tractive and  less  dull,  and  give  it  some  aesthetic  and 
literary  charm.  At  the  same  time  the  true  science  of 
human  existence  cannot  be  concrete  history,  but  general 
sociology.  We  may  put  it  thus:  Sociology  is  history 
without  proper  names;  history  is  sociology  made  con- 
crete and  individual.  The  relation  between  them  is  that 
between   algebra   and   arithmetic.     The  subject-matter 


104     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

and  content  of  each  is  the  biology  of  the  species,  homo 
sapiens. 

For  sociology  the  present  affords  a  more  fruitful  field 
of  study  than  the  past,  because  it  can  be  more  precisely 
observed  with  the  aid  of  exact  enumeration  and  measure- 
ment. At  a  pinch  it  could  do  without  history,  although 
it  must  be  admitted  that  certain  survivals  are  more  com- 
prehensible when  we  know  their  origin  and  the  part  they 
once  played;  but  history  without  sociology  is  a  mere 
collection  of  anecdotes  or  philosophical  speculation,  sub- 
jective and  devoid  of  scientific  value,  such  as  deserves  the 
contempt  of  old  Sextus  Empiricus,  who  called  history 
a/iWoSos  v\rj,  a  confused  collection  of  accidents. 

When  the  existence  and  activities  of  mankind  are 
once  viewed  in  the  right  light,  it  is  clearly  revealed  as 
one  among  many  living  species,  but  far  more  interesting 
than  any  of  them,  both  objectively  and  subjectively, 
because  it  has  attained  the  highest  stage  of  intellectual 
development  of  them  all,  and  because  we  ourselves  be- 
long to  it.  We  comprehend  that  its  destiny  is  condi- 
tioned by  the  development  of  natural  tendencies  under 
the  pressure  of  the  outer  world.  To  arrive  at  any  results 
about  it,  we  must  study  it  on  the  same  plan  and  by  the 
same  methods  that  are  applied  to,  every  other  living 
species.  Observation  and  its  results  are  nullified  by  the 
introduction  of  any  preconceived  hypothesis  for  which 
there  is  no  foundation  in  objective  fact — for  instance, 
that  the  human  species  occupies  an  exceptional  position 
towards  nature  and  the  universe  as  a  whole,  and  enjoys 
privileges  shared  by  no  other  species — if,  in  fact,  we  are 
childishly  enslaved  by  the  anthropocentric  superstition. 
Freed  from  this  venerable  error,  we  may  profitably  ob- 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     105 

serve  man,  and  construct  an  accurate  picture  of  his  nature 
from  his  behaviour  under  different  circumstances.  All 
knowledge  of  mankind,  all  anthropology  in  the  widest 
sense,  must  be  and  subserve  biology.  This  is  as  true  of 
psychophysics  and  introspective  psychology  as  of  anat- 
omy, embryology,  and  physiology.  Sociology,  too,  is 
biological,  and  must,  in  so  far  as  it  claims  to  be  scientific, 
follow  the  statistical  method  in  its  descriptions,  and  the 
psychological  in  its  interpretation,  explanation,  and 
classification.  History  makes  a  useful  contribution  to 
the  natural  history  of  mankind  only  when,  as  a  form  of 
retrospective  sociology,  it  throws  light  upon  the  universal 
characteristics  common  to  mankind  as  a  whole.  Were 
its  facts  securely  established  and  the  psychology  of 
primitive  man  accessible,  it  might  complete  sociology  by 
means  of  a  scientific  account  of  development,  which 
would  settle  the  vexed  question  whether  human  nature 
has  maintained  its  original  qualities,  its  basic  instincts, 
and  typical  reactions  unchanged  throughout  the  ages,  or 
whether  it,  in  the  course  of  thousands  of  years,  displays 
something  more  than  formal  adaptation — namely,  real 
change  and  progress.  But  psychology  remains  the  most 
important  branch  of  the  science  of  man.  It  is  through 
his  intellectual  activity  that  man  is  distinguished  from 
the  other  living  creatures  dwelling  beside  him  on  the 
earth ;  it  is  his  intellect  that  must  be  studied  if  he  is  to  be 
represented  different,  as  he  is,  from  all  other  living 
things.  Psychology  must  supply  sociology  with  an  ex- 
planation of  the  phenomena  of  the  common  life  of 
man:  the  rise  and  development  of  institutions,  the  na- 
ture and  activity  of  the  State,  the  forms  of  government, 
religion,  law,  morality,  and  national  intercourse.     For 


106      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

all  these  departments  of  human  life  correspond  to  needs 
of  human  nature  and  an  understanding  of  them  depends 
on  psychology,  and  never  on  history  alone.  John  Stuart 
Mill  enunciates  this  principle  in  his  u  Logic  " :  "  The 
explanation  of  historical  phenomena  lies  in  the  laws  of 
the  human  spirit " ;  and  Herbart ■  expressed  the  same 
view  almost  at  the  same  time:  "  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  forces  operative  in  society  are  psychological  in  their 
origin."  There  is  no  use  in  knowing  the  visible  origin 
of  institutions,  and  the  course  of  their  development  to 
existing  forms,  unless  the  intellectual  peculiarities, 
needs,  impulses,  and  efforts  out  of  which  they  grew,  and 
must  have  grown,  can  also  be  displayed.  Only  then  can 
we  begin  to  understand  them.  History  can  assist  us  to 
this  knowledge  in  various  ways.  It  can  refer  the  com- 
plex phenomena  to  simple  causes,  such  as  can  be  fully 
penetrated  and  understood.  It  can  remove  the  obscurity 
that  hides  their  connection  with  definite  human  peculiar- 
ities and  tendencies,  by  bringing  forward  a  mass  of  ex- 
amples to  prove  that  man  has  always,  at  all  times  and 
places,  been  actuated  by  similar  needs,  and  sought  to  sat- 
isfy them  by  the  same  method — a  method  always  subject 
to  the  conditions  of  his  own  nature.  At  the  same  time,  it 
can  keep  in  sight  certain  exceptional^ situations  valuable 
as  experiments,  becausethey  are  favourable  to  the  display 
of  certain  psychic  traits  and  peculiarities  which  remain 
in  the  background  under  the  average  conditions  of  life, 
and  are  therefore  apt  to  be  overlooked.  Sociology  and 
history,  identical  as  concepts,  are  the  product  of  human 
psychology,  and  from  them  we  can  obtain  a  retrospect 
of  psychology  itself.     All  the  peculiarities  of  human 

1  Herbart's  Works,  edited  by  Hartenstein,  vol.  vi.,  p.  33. 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     107 

nature,  those  most  obvious  and  those  most  profoundly 
concealed,  are  displayed  in  the  manner  of  his  reaction, 
past  and  present,  to  impressions  from  the  external 
world,  and  in  the  terms  he  has  made  for  himself  with 
life  and  with  that  world.  The  biologist  who  studies 
these  peculiarities  by  the  clear  light  of  reason,  un- 
clouded by  any  mystic  haze,  can  determine  from 
them  the  laws  according  to  which  man  has  reacted 
on  his  environment,  and  must  continue  to  react  upon 
it  so  long  as  his  nature  does  not  undergo  a  complete 
change. 

An  exact  scientific  knowledge  of  the  general  concrete 
features  of  the  life  of  the  human  species  can  only  be 
acquired  by  the  observation  of  great  masses  of  in- 
stances^— that  is,  from  statistics.  There  is  thus  insight 
in  Schlozer's  witty  epigram :  "  History  is  statistics  in 
movement,  statistics  history  in  repose."  But  it  is  neces- 
sary to  look  away  from  the  general  to  the  particular  so 
soon  as  the  causes  of  phenomena  are  touched,  and  an 
explanation  required  of  the  how  and  why,  as  well  as 
the  what,  of  institutions,  habits,  etc.  In  other  words, 
the  natural  history  of  man  is  psychology,  and  psychol- 
ogy is  necessarily  individual. 

There  is  no  psychology  of  the  crowd.  What  goes  by 
that  name  is  an  error,  a  word  without  meaning,  or  else 
the  unimportant  result  of  a  multiplication  of  individual 
psychology,  unimportant  because  addition  or  multiplica- 
tion of  a  quantity  does  not  alter  its  nature  or  convey 
any  further  information  about  it.  Thus  there  is  some- 
thing paradoxical  in  the  name  of  the  new  science  of 
sociology,  since  it  cannot  be  the  science  of  society,  but 
only  of  the  individuals  that  compose  society — that  is, 


108      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

only  anthropology.  We  cannot  approach  society  sci- 
entifically until  we  possess  an  exact  knowledge  of  the 
component  parts  of  which  it  is  the  sum. 

Auguste  Comte  goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  the 
individual  man  absolutely  does  not  exist;  there  is 
nothing  but  humanity.1  He  denies  that  the  develop- 
ment of  society  can  be  deduced  from  the  peculiarities  of 
the  individual.  This  opinion  is  shared  by  Wundt; 2  and 
even  Ernest  Mach,  who  would  exclude  metaphysics 
from  philosophy,  departs  so  far  from  this  view  as  to 
conceive  of  humanity  as  a  unified  organism,  "  a  poly- 
pus," whose  members  "  have  lost  their  organic  rela- 
tionships." Here  he  is  drawing  upon  something  that  is 
not  the  result  of  observation.  The  characteristic 
that  he  introduces  into  the  infinitely  complex  and 
perpetually  changing  picture  presented  by  human  be- 
ings, and  called  humanity,  exists  in  his  mind,  not  in 
reality. 

Such  propositions  lead  a  superficial  writer  like  Gum- 
plowicz  3  to  make  the  rash  assertion  that  "  science  has 
done  with  individualism  and  atomism,"  although  the 
most  casual  perusal  of  the  literature  of  the  subject  shows 
that  such  a  statement  has  no  foundation.  Simmel 4 
says:  "  Nothing  is  real  save  the  movements  of  the  mole- 

1  Auguste  Comte,  "  Cours  de  Philosophic  Positive,"  fourth  edition, 
Paris,  1877,  vol.  vi.,  p.  590:  "From  the  static  or  dynamic  point  of 
view,  man  is  really  and  fundamentally  an  abstraction;  reality  belongs 
to  humanity  alone." 

*  W.  Wundt,  "  Logic,"  second  edition,  Stuttgart,  1895,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
291. 

*  Ludwig  Gumplowicz,  "  Principles  of  Sociology,"  second  edition, 
Vienna,  1905. 

4  Georg  Simmel,  "  Problems  of  the  Philosophy  of  History,"  Leip- 
zig, 1892,  p.  39. 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     109 

cules  and  the  laws  that  regulate  them.  No  peculiar 
law  can  be  assumed  as  governing  the  sum  of  such  move- 
ments when  grouped  together  in  a  totality."  Spencer1 
says  the  same  thing:  "A  totality  of  men  possesses  the 
qualities  that  can  be  deduced  from  the  qualities  of  the 
individuals.  .  .  .  The  qualities  of  the  units  determine 
the  qualities  of  the  combination."  H.  S.  Maine  dis- 
tinguishes the  society  of  ancient  from  that  of  modern 
times.  Previously  the  sociological  unit  was  the  family. 
"  But  the  unit  of  modern  society  is  the  individual 
man."  Lotze  says  in  the  "  Microcosm  " :  "  The  only 
active  points  in  the  course  of  history  are  the  minds  of 
living  individuals."  Schopenhauer  ("Parerga  and 
Paralipomena  ")  says:  "Peoples  only  exist  in  ab- 
stracts ...  it  is  the  individuals  that  are  real."  Louis 
Blanc  sees  only  individuals  in  history:  "Individualism 
triumphed  through  Luther  in  religion,  through  Voltaire 
and  the  Encyclopaedists  in  the  intellectual  sphere, 
through  Montesquieu  in  economics,  and  through  the 
French  Revolution  in  the  world  of  reality."  No  cita- 
tion of  authorities  is,  however,  necessary  to  prove  that 
individual  men  alone,  and  not  a  totality  of  men,  whether 
it  be  called  people,  class,  society,  or  humanity,  repre- 
sent reality  for  the  natural  history  of  man,  which  we 
have  called  sociology,  or  history  looked  at  from  a 
sociological  point  of  view. 

The  notion  of  regarding  the  abstraction  "  humanity  " 
as  a  reality  must  have  come  from  theologians  and  meta- 
physicians, who  are  in  the  habit  of  regarding  the  spirits 
they  have  themselves  created  out  of  words  as  possessed 

*  Herbert    Spencer,    "  Introduction    to   Social    Science,"   Paris,    1880, 
P-  55- 


no      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  a  matter-of-fact  existence.  In  Ezekiel,  chapter  xvi., 
we  find  the  first  comparison  of  Jerusalem  to  a  man  who 
passes  through  childhood,  grows  up,  takes  a  wife,  is  false 
to  her,  and  is  stoned  to  death;  and  it  is  done  with  the 
full  consciousness  of  employing  a  merely  poetic  simile. 
But  Cicero  was  taking  the  image  literally  when  he 
found  all  the  stages  of  human  life  reproduced  in  the 
history  of  Rome — birth,  adolescence,  youth,  maturity. 
Seneca,  the  orator,  was  pleased  with  the  notion,  and 
borrowed  it  from  Cicero.  Florus  in  the  Preface  to  his 
"  Outline  of  Roman  History,"  generalized  the  idea  to 
all  peoples,  in  whose  life  he  found  "  quattuor  gradus 
processusque " — the  four  stages  and  progresses  of 
human  existence — birth,  childhood,  youth,  age.  Am- 
mianus  Marcellinus  was  satisfied  with  repeating  the 
words  of  Florus.  St.  Augustine  goes  a  step  farther. 
He  no  longer  confines  himself  to  a  political  form,  such 
as  a  people,  but  sees  the  life  of  humanity  as  a  whole  as 
that  of  an  individual  man;  its  life,  like  his,  as  a  prog- 
ress from  childhood  to  youth,  maturity  and  old  age. 
Whether  he  is  comparing  or  identifying  is  not  clear, 
even  to  his  own  mind.  Sometimes  he  begins  by  premis- 
ing that  he  is  using  a  figure  of  speech,  but,  as  his 
thought  develops,  he  falls  a  victim  to  his  own  imag- 
inative faculty,  and  his  metaphor  is  transformed  under 
his  pen  to  a  living  organism  of  flesh  and  blood.  Pascal, 
too,  observes  in  the  Preface  to  his  "  Traite  du  Vide  " : 
"  We  must  look  upon  the  continuity  of  the  human  race 
throughout  the  centuries  as  the  continued  existence  and 
progressive  experience  of  a  single  human  being."  He 
thought  to  throw  light  upon  the  path  of  progress  by 
this  fiction.     It  is,  however,  quite  superfluous,  since  tra- 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     in 

dition  is  handed  on  by  each  learned  man  to  his  suc- 
cessors, and  the  young  are  instructed  by  their  elders.  It 
is  as  easy  to  conceive  of  a  progress  of  successive  genera- 
tions as  of  humanity  as  a  single  man  profiting  by  the 
lessons  of  the  experience  he  gradually  accumulates. 
Auguste  Comte  boasted  that  his  "  positive  philosophy  " 
did,  in  contradistinction  to  all  theological  and  meta- 
physical speculations,  "  subordinate  imagination  to  ob- 
servation." *  But  when,  following  the  example  of  St. 
Augustine  and  Pascal,  he  rejects  the  individual  and 
allows  the  totality  alone  to  be  real,  he  is  maintaining  a 
conclusion  that  is  not  obtained  from  observation,  but 
simply  and  solely  from  imagination.2 

Simplified  by  dull  and  superficial  minds,  Pascal's 
semi-rhetorical  abstractions  have  suffered  literal  trans- 
lation into  a  crude  materialism.  Infamous  is  not  too 
strong  a  word  for  the  performance  of  von  Lilienfeld. 
With  terrible  seriousness,  he  takes  society,  or  rather  the 
State,  as  an  actual  organism  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 

1  Auguste  Comte,  "  La  Sociologie,"  edited  by  Emile  Rigolage,  Paris, 
1897,  p.  51. 

2  The  image  used  by  Ezekiel,  Cicero,  Florus,  and  St.  Augustine 
is  so  natural  and  reasonable  that  it  constantly  occurred  to  writers 
busied  with  historical  considerations  down  to  quite  modern  times, 
without  their  being  aware  of  their  predecessors.  There  is  obviously 
a  close  relationship  between  them  and  Vico  and  Fontenelle  in  the 
eighteenth  century;  St.  Simon  at  the  beginning,  and  Littre  and  Eduard 
v.  Hartmann  in  the  third  quarter,  of  the  nineteenth,  who  all  speak 
of  the  life  of  a  people  or  of  humanity  as  resembling  the  life  of  an 
individual :  and  Fontenelle,  St.  Simon,  and  Littre  go  further,  and  de- 
clare that  a  people,  like  an  individual,  has  in  childhood  only  bodily 
desires;  in  youth  it  grows  up  to  labour  and  develop  the  imagination 
in  the  form  of  poetry  and  art;  in  manhood  it  acquires  intellectual 
maturity,  and  turns  to  natural  sciences  and  to  philosophy. 


ii2      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

word,  and  proceeds  to  give  an  exact  anatomical  descrip- 
tion of  it.  He  displays  the  bones,  joints,  muscle,  tissue 
and  nerves,  the  circulation,  the  limbs,  and  the  internal 
organs  that  nourish  the  creature  and  determine  its 
functions.  That  it  is  born,  develops,  overcomes  disease, 
grows  old,  and  dies  is  obvious.  Von  Lilienfeld  has  not 
enough  imagination  to  go  farther,  and  tell  us  whether 
his  State  is  an  organism  of  the  male  or  female  sex, 
whether  it  marries  and  has  children,  or  spends  its  life  in 
unblessed  solitude,  and  how  its  obsequies  are  celebrated 
when  it  dies.  From  his  description,  its  anatomy  is 
clearly  that  of  a  human  being,  or  at  least  of  a  mammal. 
Here  again  there  is  a  lack  of  imagination.  There  is  no 
necessity  to  suppose  the  State  a  mammal.  It  might 
have  been  an  articulated  animal,  a  reptile,  or  a  jelly-fish, 
any  of  which  would  have  avoided  many  difficulties  and 
been  much  more  picturesque.  Schaffle  makes  the  same 
mistake,  although  he  maintained  later,  in  defiance  of 
all  probability,  that  his  book,  "  Structure  and  Life  of 
the  Social  Body,"  was  not  meant  to  be  taken  literally, 
but  allegorically.  In  spite  of  Schaffle's  recantation, 
Rene  Worms  maintained  his  earlier  point  of  view,  to 
which  von  Lilienfeld  was  faithful  to  the  last. 

It  is  humiliating  to  have  to  record  that  a  group  exists 
to  this  day  which  supports  and  cherishes  the  marvellous 
delusions  of  Schaffle  and  Lilienfeld,  and  even  expands 
them — a  group  that  takes  itself  seriously  and  is  taken 
seriously  by  others,  calls  itself  a  sociological  school,  and 
dignifies  its  play  upon  words  by  the  prodigious  name  of 
the  "organistic  method" — and  that  sociological  con- 
gresses, struggling  to  be  scientific,  have,  with  the 
noblest  intentions,  gone  so  far  as  to  enter  into  heated 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     113 

discussions  of  what,  after  all,  is  mere  play  upon  words, 
mere  drawing  of  analogies. 

Metaphors  apart,  to  look  upon  society,  State,  and 
humanity  as  an  actually  living  being  is  a  primitive  piece 
of  innocence  worthy  of  the  village  wiseacre  who  ex- 
plains the  northern  lights  as  the  train  of  sparks  rising 
from  the  anvil,  on  which  the  axle  of  the  earth  is  being 
repaired  by  the  smith ;  or  of  the  naughty  schoolboy  who 
plays  at  being  a  sea-captain,  moving  over  the  surface  of 
the  earth  with  an  indiarubber  fastened  to  the  keel  of 
his  steamer  in  order  that  he  may  play  a  trick  on  the 
geographers  by  rubbing  out  the  lines  of  latitude  and 
longitude,  and  even  the  equator.  There  is  something 
incomprehensible  in  this  literal  acceptance  of  a  phrase, 
this  incapacity  to  grasp  a  metaphor,  this  diseased  desire 
to  make  a  fetish  of  words. 

The  truth  is  that  a  number  of  men  living  together 
under  the  same  or  similar  conditions  are  no  more  one 
living  unity,  one  human  being,  in  the  sense  in  which 
St.  Augustine,  Pascal,  and  Auguste  Comte  use  the  word, 
than  a  number  of  locomotives  collected  in  an  engineer- 
ing shop  are  one  single  locomotive.  Human  events  are 
the  outcome  of  individual  human  activity,  the  reaction 
of  individuals  upon  circumstances  originating  in  na- 
ture and  the  activity  of  other  human  beings;  they  are 
only  explicable  by  a  consideration  of  individual  qual- 
ities. Every  mass  movement,  be  it  a  war,  a  rebellion,  a 
crusade,  a  migration,  a  pilgrimage,  is  the  outcome  of  the 
actions  of  individual  men,  concerted  for  that  purpose, 
but  capable  of  being  regarded  and  estimated  apart. 
Every  institution  and  the  functions  connected  with  it — 
government  and  the  duties  of  subjects,  religion  and  the 


ii4     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

observance  of  its  rites,  trade,  credit,  commerce,  industry, 
and  the  organization  of  classes — all  have  arisen  out  of 
some  definite  human  faculty  which  can  only  be  studied 
in  the  individual. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  human  beings  are  biologically 
interdependent,  inasmuch  as  certainly  all  those  who 
belong  to  one  race,  and  possibly  all  those  who  belong 
to  the  species,  are,  in  the  last  resort,  related  and 
descended  from  the  same  primal  parents  from  whom 
they  have  inherited — not,  indeed,  as  Weismann  would 
have  us  believe,  the  actual  corporeal  germ-cells  now 
living  within  them,  but  the  tendencies  transmitted 
through  the  germ-cells  of  their  ancestors.  This  bio- 
logical interdependence  is  far  from  involving  an  organic 
unity,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  philosophic  historian  or 
sociologist  who  believes  in  the  "  organistic  method " 
conceives  it.  For  it  is  not  limited  to  the  human 
species;  it  includes  the  other  animal  species,  and, 
presumably,  all  the  types  of  life  existent  on  the 
earth,  in  the  present  or  the  most  remote  past,  from  the 
unicellular  organism  to  the  most  highly  differentiated 
human  being.  From  the  philosophical  point  of  view, 
the  notion  of  such  an  interdependence  of  all  living  mat- 
ter, of  all  life,  is  valuable;  from- the  historical  it  is 
sterile,  since  an  organic  unity  of  the  State  and  of  human- 
ity, which,  so  far  as  it  exists,  exists  in  virtue  of  the  inter- 
dependence of  the  whole  animal,  and  even  the  whole 
vegetable,  kingdom,  is  in  no  sense  the  key  to  the  com- 
prehension of  a  single  historical  event,  a  single  human 
institution.  Paracelsus  came  much  nearer  the  truth 
when  he  called  each  man  a  microcosm,  a  world  in 
himself.     In  spite  of  the  relationship  existing  between 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     115 

human  beings,  in  spite  of  the  resemblance  of  members 
of  the  same  species  to  one  another,  in  spite  of  an  inter- 
dependence not  confined  to  members  of  the  same  type, 
but  extending  to  all  life  and  to  the  world  in  its  entirety 
— in  spite  of  all  this,  human  actions  can  never  be  under- 
stood except  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual. 
For  the  organic  impulses,  in  which  human  actions  take 
their  rise,  always  express  themselves  through  the  indi- 
vidual; it  is  by  the  individual  that  they  are  felt,  in  him 
they  reach  the  surface  of  consciousness,  in  him  they 
arouse  motives,  aspirations,  ideas,  and  judgments  giving 
birth  to  deeds.  Unless  investigation  reaches  down  to 
these  individual  roots  of  human  action  and  behaviour, 
no  accurate  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  the  life  of 
societies,  people,  and  States  can  be  obtained. 

Few  words  are  responsible  for  so  much  mental  con- 
fusion as  the  psychology  of  the  crowd  and  the  psychol- 
ogy of  nations.  Scipio  Sighele's  *  object  in  his  standard 
work  on  "  The  Criminal  Crowd  "  was  to  establish  the 
fact  that  people  will  do  things  when  they  are  gathered 
in  great  numbers  that  they  would  never  do  alone.  The 
fact  itself  can  only  be  asserted  with  reservations,  and  is 
capable  of  various  interpretations.  A  lofty  intellectual 
standard  is  not  to  be  expected  of  a  crowd,  even  of  one 
composed  of  highly  gifted  individuals.  The  explanation 
is  simple,  and  not  at  all  mysterious.  The  union  of 
numerous  individuals  in  a  crowd  does  not  give  rise  to  a 
new  superindividual,  possessing  an  intellectual  equip- 
ment quite  different  from  those  of  the  units  of  which 
the  superindividual  is  composed.     High  intellectual  at- 

1  Scipio    Sighele,    "  La    Folia    Delinquente,"    second    edition,    Turin, 
1895. 


n6      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tributes — attributes  that  are,  by  definition,  above  the 
average — are  individually  differentiated.  Each  indi- 
vidual differentiation,  in  so  far  as  it  is  individual,  in- 
stead of  adding  itself  to  every  other,  separates  itself 
from  it,  and  therefore  neutralizes  it.  Thus  there  are 
left,  after  those  attributes  which  are  individually  dif- 
ferentiated, and  therefore  higher,  have  neutralized  each 
other,  merely  the  average  attributes  common  to  all, 
which,  of  course,  are  on  a  lower  plane.  I  have  else- 
where *  gone  fully  into  the  behaviour  of  the  crowd.  It 
does  not,  however,  at  all  follow  that,  because  a  number 
of  highly  intellectual  individuals  will,  when  joined  into 
a  crowd,  display  but  mediocre  abilities,  that  a  number  of 
highly  moral  individuals  will,  when  joined  into  a  crowd, 
prove  immoral  or  absolutely  criminal.  On  the  contrary, 
I  most  emphatically  deny  that  a  crime  would  be  com- 
mitted by  any  number  of  really  moral  men,  however 
great.  Any  assertion  to  the  contrary  is  arbitrary  and 
incapable  of  proof.  Crimes  committed  by  crowds  al- 
ways originate  with  individuals  who,  as  individuals,  are 
naturally  predisposed  to  crime.     In  a  crowd,  at  any 

'"Paradoxes,"  seventh  edition,  Leipzig,  not  dated,  p.  31.  Per- 
haps the  only  writer  who  credits  the  crowd  with  better  judgment  than 
a  highly  gifted  individual  is  the  tragedian  Pomponius  Secundus, 
quoted  by  Pliny  the  Younger  in  the  Seventeenth  Letter  of  his  Fifth 
Book,  who  used,  when  his  verdict  on  a  piece  differed  from  that  of  a 
trustworthy  friend,  to  say:  "Ad  populum  provoco " — "I  appeal  to 
the  people."  This  is,  however,  really  a  question  of  an  expression  of 
feeling,  not  of  ratiocination;  and  since  feeling  represents  a  less  highly 
differentiated  activity  of  the  brain  than  ratiocination,  the  difference 
between  the  average  crowd  and  the  cultivated  individual  may  actually 
be  less  marked  in  this  case.  In  this  sense  only  there  may  be  some 
truth  in  the  saying  that  Monsieur  T out-U-monde  is  cleverer  than  Mon- 
sieur de  Voltaire. 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     117 

rate,  they  find  accomplices  in  other  individuals  whose 
more  or  less  pronouncedly  criminal  tendencies  are  as  a 
rule  kept  under  by  fear  of  consequences.  The  fact  of 
numbers  removes  this  check,  and  the  evil  impulse  is 
stimulated  by  the  knowledge  that  the  individual  is 
hardly  ever  punished  for  his  share  in  crimes  committed 
by  crowds,  because  of  the  difficulty  of  bringing  him  to 
book.  At  the  same  time,  the  great  majority  of  average 
people,  being  neither  specially  good  nor  specially  bad, 
are  apt,  from  their  very  lack  of  decided  character,  to 
imitate  the  example  of  someone  else.  When  gathered 
into  a  crowd,  they  offer  no  resistance  to  the  suggestions 
of  a  few  ringleaders,  and  follow  them  like  sheep.  Of 
course,  one  would  probably  not  be  far  wrong  in  saying 
that  such  average  people,  even  when  not  gathered  into 
a  crowd,  would  probably  obey  any  suggestion  made  to 
them,  granted  that  the  conditions  were  as  remarkably 
favourable  as  are  the  rush,  excitement,  noise,  and  tumult 
of  a  concourse.  And  yet  overheated  brains  would  fain 
see  I  know  not  what  amazing  transmogrifications  in  this 
simple  fact.  With  the  mysticism  so  irresistibly  at- 
tractive to  weak  intellects,  they  would  fain  understand, 
or  misunderstand,  Sighele's  psychology  of  the  crowd  to 
mean  that  a  crowd  is  a  being  apart  from  and  independ- 
ent of  the  individuals  that  compose  it,  possessing  im- 
pulses, passions,  thoughts  and  judgments  of  its  own,  and 
reasoning,  feeling,  and  acting  unlike  any  individual 
man.  If  one  penetrates  their  wild  and  whirling  words 
to  the  kernel  of  fact  that  lies  behind,  the  absurdity  of 
the  assumption  is  patent.  Where  is  the  brain  of  this 
new  and  independent  organism,  that  arises  out  of  the 
gathering  together  of  individuals  into  a  crowd  ?    Where 


n8      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

are  these  new  impulses,  passions,  etc.,  situated?  Does 
the  new  organism  "  crowd  "  develop  a  new  brain  and 
nervous  system  to  express  its  new  feelings,  thoughts  and 
actions?  Even  the  mystical  exponents  of  the  so-called 
psychology  of  the  crowd  do  not  go  as  far  as  that.  Even 
they  assign  to  the  crowd  no  more  than  the  sum  of  the 
brain  and  nerve  processes  of  individuals.  What  does 
this  involve?  Are  the  different  phases  of  which  any 
action  is  the  outcome  to  be  conceived  as  taking  place 
in  different  individual  brains?  Does,  for  example,  one 
individual  or  group  of  individuals  receive  sense  im- 
pressions, another  individual  or  group  translate  these 
impressions  into  perception,  a  third  individual  or 
group  start  the  train  of  associations  and  call  up  in  the 
consciousness  the  concepts,  judgments,  and  emotions 
that  accompany  them,  while  a  fourth  individual  or 
group  finally  obeys  these  stimuli  and  translates  them 
into  acts?  The  absurdity  of  the  idea  of  such  a  psychic 
division  of  labour  in  producing  a  common  product  of  the 
kind  is  obvious.  Only  in  each  individual  brain  can  the 
psychic  functions  of  the  new  super-organism  "  crowd  " 
be  carried  on,  throughout  the  whole  chain  that  begins 
with  the  sense  stimulus  and  is  completed  in  the  function- 
ing of  muscles  and  glands.  It  is  mere  folly  to  devote 
long  words  and  high-sounding  formula?  to  pointing  out 
the  obvious  truth  that  individuals  do  perceive,  feel, 
think,  judge,  and  act,  whether  alone  or  in  a  crowd. 

A  crowd,  in  the  sense  in  which  one  can  speak  of  its 
voice,  its  weight,  its  strength,  has  a  psychology.  That 
is  merely  to  say  that  a  thousand  voices  shouting  make 
more  noise  than  one,  a  thousand  pairs  of  arms  can  raise 
heavier  weights  and  do  harder  work  than  one,  or  that  a 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     119 

floor  that  would  support  the  weight  of  one  man  quite 
easily  may  give  way  beneath  a  thousand.  But  psychic- 
ally there  is  no  more  difference  between  a  crowd  and 
its  component  parts  than  between  a  thousand  cannon 
and  a  single  gun.  In  each  case  the  dynamic  effects,  the 
actual  results,  are  different;  but  it  is  the  merest  anthro- 
pomorphism to  deduce  from  this  difference  a  difference 
in  the  force  that  creates  the  effects. 

An  apparently  reasonable  basis  for  belief  in  the 
psychology  of  the  crowd  can  be  found  in  one  direction 
only.  In  a  crowd  the  individual  is  subject  to  an  excite- 
ment such  as  he  never  feels  when  alone.  This  excite- 
ment impels  him  to  feel,  think,  and  act  in  a  manner  so 
different  from  that  customary  to  him  when  alone  that, 
on  exchanging  the  crowd  for  solitude,  he  marvels  at 
himself  and  at  his  having  been  able  so  to  think,  feel,  and 
act.  To  this  extent,  then,  one  can  speak  of  the  psychol- 
ogy of  the  crowd. 

The  fact  is  correct;  the  inference  false.  What  does 
it  prove  that  a  man  feels,  thinks,  and  acts  in  one  way  in 
a  crowd,  in  another  when  alone?  Only  that  the  sight 
of  a  crowd,  and  the  fact  of  being  in  it,  excites  him,  and 
that  his  brain  and  nerves  act  in  one  way  when  he  is 
excited,  in  another  when  he  is  at  peace.  But  violent 
excitement  is  not  caused  solely  by  a  crowd.  It  arises  in 
many  circumstances  of  the  most  varying  kind,  as  with 
extraordinarily  strong  sense  impressions,  danger,  or  cer- 
tain bodily  states.  The  sight  of  a  volcano  in  eruption,  a 
huge  conflagration,  an  earthquake,  a  battle,  or  a  tiger 
out  of  his  cage,  will  give  a  man  feelings  that  do  not  visit 
him  as  he  sits  in  dressing-gown  and  slippers  by  his  own 
fireside.     When  suffering  the  pangs  of  hunger  a  man 


120     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

will  think,  feel,  and  act  rather  differently  from  what  he 
would  do  after  a  good  dinner.  Richard  in  love,  or 
drunk,  is  a  different  creature  from  Richard  cool  and 
sober.  Is  psychology  to  be  subdivided  accordingly? 
Does  the  individual  soul  disappear  in  each  of  these  in- 
stances, to  be  replaced  by  a  new  soul  conditioned  by  vol- 
cano, conflagration,  earthquake,  battle,  or  encounter 
with  a  tiger,  by  hunger,  love,  or  intoxication?  Yet  the 
assumption  of  the  so-called  disappearance  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  crowd,  and  the  rise  of  a  new  crowd-soul, 
is  on  the  same  level  as  these  suppositions.  To  under- 
stand the  feelings,  thoughts,  and  actions  of  a  crowd,  one 
must  penetrate  beyond  it  to  the  individual.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  investigate  his  intellectual  structure,  and  its 
reaction  to  any  sort  of  excitement.  The  part  played  by 
his  imitative  faculty  and  receptivity  to  suggestions  must 
be  understood,  no  less  than  the  instincts  that  slumber 
hidden  in  his  soul,  until  something  removes  the  bounds, 
conscious  and  unconscious,  within  which  they  are  nor- 
mally restrained,  and  they  then  burst  forth  tremen- 
dous. 

This  purely  individual  psychology  is  not  advanced  in 
the  least  by  subordination  to  any  so-called  psychology 
of  the  crowd,  which  endows  the  mere  word  "  crowd  " 
with  actuality,  and  bestows  upon  a  figment  of  the 
imagination  the  qualities  of  a  living  being.  In  the  same 
way  verbal  abstractions,  such  as  wisdom,  love,  and  pity, 
are  personified  by  the  artistic  imagination  and  repre- 
sented in  the  female  form  with  all  sorts  of  attributes. 
The  psychology  of  the  crowd  is  the  psychology  of  an 
abstract  concept  based  in  fact  upon  a  number  of  indi- 
viduals.    Either  it  has  no  material  at  all,  or,  since  its 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     121 

material  consists  of  individuals,  it  must  become  indi- 
vidual psychology. 

The  psychology  of  nations,  which  was  believed  by  its 
founders,  Lazarus  and  Steinthal,  to  be  a  new  and  fruit- 
ful science,  is  as  fallacious  as  the  psychology  of  the 
crowd.  Throughout  long  periods  of  time  and  all  the 
vicissitudes  undergone  by  their  government,  religion, 
and  habits  in  the  course  of  history,  nations — or,  at  least, 
some  nations — display  certain  permanent  intellectual 
and  moral  characteristics  that  make  successive  genera- 
tions of  their  people  like  one  another  and  unlike  other 
nationalities.  Upon  this  proposition  Lazarus  and  Stein- 
thal base  all  their  views  and  hypotheses.  But  the  prop- 
osition itself  is  highly  disputable.  Is  there,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  a  difference  between  nations?  Only  the  super- 
ficial observer  will  answer  this  great  question  off-hand 
with  any  assurance.  The  differences  apparent  at  a  first 
glance  are  of  the  most  external  character,  such  as 
language,  dress,  and  social  habits;  go  a  little  deeper, 
and  you  come  to  institutions,  customs,  methods  of  work, 
general  views  of  life,  standards  of  value,  objects  of  as- 
piration. But  the  inner  life  of  man  lies  beyond  such  dif- 
ferences as  these,  and  remains  unaffected  by  them;  and 
in  the  common  attributes  of  humanity,  in  which  all  men 
are  alike,  feeling,  will,  reason,  and  action,  there  is  some- 
thing far  more  fundamental  than  these  superficial  dif- 
ferences between  nationalities.  The  Italian  proverb 
which  says  "  The  whole  world  is  like  one  family,"  comes 
far  nearer  to  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head  than  the  pro- 
found endeavours  of  Lazarus  and  Steinthal  to  discover 
sharp  differences  at  every  turn.  Exception  may  be 
taken,  moreover,  to  the  second  half  of  their  proposi- 


122      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tion.  Is  it  a  fact  that,  in  the  whole  course  of  its  history, 
each  nation  preserves  a  mental  and  moral  physiognomy 
that  gives  it  a  defined  individuality  throughout  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  of  years?  There  are  insuperable 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  conclusive  answer.  We  have 
no  reliable  knowledge  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of 
the  mass  of  the  people  in  the  remote  or  even  in  the 
recent  past.  Such  evidence  as  exists  is  capable  of  vari- 
ous interpretation.  Literature,  laws,  art,  reflect  the 
activity  of  a  small  minority  or  individual  persons  only; 
they  tell  us  nothing  of  the  masses.  In  the  artistic  de- 
lineation of  a  national  character,  that  is  supposed  to 
have  been  the  same  throughout  centuries,  the  principal 
part  is  played  by  preconceived  notions  of  a  subjective 
kind.  This  constructive  psychology  is  not  usually  ap- 
plied to  small  nations  without  any  history,  but  to  the 
more  eventful  and  changing  story  of  great  nations. 
Given  a  certain  parti  pris,  a.  certain  object  to  govern  the 
representation,  rich  history  affords  the  artist  in  mosaic 
plenty  of  material  for  any  picture  he  please.  With  a 
little  sophistry  it  would  not  take  much  time  or  trouble  to 
deduce  two  entirely  different  sets  of  characteristics  for 
any  nation  selected  at  will.  Fortified  with  examples 
from  its  history,  the  uncritical  reader  would  swallow 
them  both,  though  there  would  not  be  a  word  of  truth 
in  either.  The  method,  or  trick,  is  simple  enough.  By 
selecting  certain  events  from  the  mass,  and  grouping 
them  together  to  the  exclusion  of  others,  it  is  always 
possible  to  present  a  nation  throughout  long  periods  of 
time  in  the  aspect  in  which  one  sees  it  oneself  and  desires 
to  present  it  to  others. 

What,  then,  is  the  basis  of  the  special  character  and 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     123 

temper  of  a  people  ?  Is  it  physiological  inheritance  and 
a  common  descent?  Of  the  great  European  nations 
with  which  the  would-be  science  of  national  psychology 
has  hitherto  busied  itself,  not  one  shows  a  pure  strain; 
there  is  a  mixture  of  blood  in  all  of  them.  All  are  com- 
posed of  the  same  elements  in  different  proportions. 
Why,  then,  should  a  mingling  of  the  early  European  in- 
habitants of  the  Alps  and  Mediterranean  have  pro- 
duced, as  in  France,  a  national  character  and  soul 
different  from  that  produced  by  the  later  Celts,  Ger- 
mans, and  Romans  in  West  and  South  Germany?  The 
special  physiognomy  of  a  nation,  in  so  far  as  it  possessed 
one  different  from  those  of  other  nations,  could  not  con- 
sist of  such  inherited  characteristics  as  are  organic, 
inborn  and  unchangeable,  but  of  those  externals  that 
can  be  acquired  and  laid  aside,  and  are  thus  capable  of 
change.  The  notion  of  a  special  national  individuality 
and  physiognomy  is,  however,  entirely  in  the  air,  one  of 
those  facile  generalizations  that  lie  at  the  root  of  so 
many  errors  and  prejudices.  The  story  of  the  English- 
man who  was  waited  upon  in  the  inn,  to  which  he  went 
on  landing  at  Calais,  by  a  humpbacked  chambermaid 
with  red  hair,  and  wrote  in  his  diary,  "  French  women 
have  red  hair  and  are  humpbacked  " — this  story  is  a 
joke.  But  the  dignity  of  science  is  claimed  by  the  so- 
called  psychologists  who  declare,  on  the  evidence  of  a 
few  Attic  painters  and  sculptors,  that  "  the  ancient 
Athenians  were  a  people  of  artists";  on  the  evidence  of 
the  suicide  of  Lucretia,  "the  women  of  early  Rome 
were  so  chaste  that  they  preferred  death  to  dishonour  " ; 
on  the  evidence  of  Voltaire,  "  that  the  French  are  bril- 
liant and  frivolous  ";  on  the  evidence  of  the  poet-Prince 


124     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  Weimar  and  the  school  of  Kant,  Fichte,  Schilling, 
and  Hegel,  "  that  the  Germans  are  a  people  of  thinkers 
and  poets." 

Lazarus  and  Steinthal  looked  upon  the  varieties  of 
language  as  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  organic 
differences  between  nations,  and  they  lavished  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  ingenuity  in  tracing  them  back  to,  and 
regarding  them  as  the  direct  expression  of,  national 
differences  of  thought  and  feeling.  Their  analysis  of 
language  as  the  expression  of  character  is  the  most 
striking  part  of  their  work,  for  which  it  seemed  to 
provide  a  really  scientific  basis.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  argument  is  particularly  insecure.  Most  of  the 
languages  spoken  to-day  were  not  created  by  the  peoples 
who  use  them.  For  example,  the  Latin  languages  are 
spoken  in  Italy  by  Ligurians,  Etrurians,  and  inhabitants 
of  Northern  Africa;  in  France  by  Celts  and  Germans; 
in  Belgium  by  Walloons;  in  Spain  by  Iberians  and 
Semites.  The  Slav  language  is  spoken  by  the  Turko- 
Tartaric  Bulgarians  and  the  Mongolian  races  of  Russia ; 
German  is  spoken  by  the  Slavs  in  Mecklenburg,  Lausitz, 
and  the  Mark,  and  by  the  Celts  in  the  Rhine  Valley;  and 
so  on.  Although,  for  the  most  part,  we  know  nothing 
of  the  prehistoric  struggles,  in  the  course  of  which  some 
languages  conquered  and  others  were  thrust  aside,  there 
is  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact  of  nations  giving  up  their  own 
language  and  taking  on  another.  But  in  such  a  case 
how  can  language  be  called  the  outcome  and  expression 
of  a  special  national  spirit?  If  it  expresses  the  spirit 
of  the  people  that  has  created  it,  it  is  incomprehensible 
that  the  spirit  of  an  entirely  different  people  should  find 
adequate  expression  in  it.    On  the  other  hand,  in  so  far 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     125, 

as  the  language  can  be  adapted  so  as  to  form  the  entirely 
adequate  expression  of  the  spirit  of  any  nation,  or  of  a 
number  of  nations  of  different  origin,  it  is  not  essentially 
conditioned  by  the  peculiar  spirit  of  the  one  that  created 
it.  If  one  and  the  same  garment  fits  different  wearers 
equally  well,  only  one  logical  conclusion  is  open — either 
the  wearers  are  of  the  same  build  or  the  garment  does 
not  really  fit  them.  If  the  most  different  races  can 
express  their  thoughts  and  feelings  with  complete  satis- 
faction through  the  medium  of  the  same  language, 
either  those  thoughts  and  feelings  must  be  more  or  less 
the^  same,  or  the  language  must  be  so  adaptable  to  any 
and  every  thought  and  feeling  that  it  cannot  in  itself 
provide  the  key  to  understanding  the  special  character 
of  any  one  people.  Language,  then,  is  no  proof  of  the 
existence  of  national  character,  no  source  for  the  so- 
called  psychology  of  nations. 

At  the  same  time  different  languages  do  exist  which, 
though  originally  perhaps  sprung  from  a  single  root, 
have  developed  according  to  different  rules  of  pro- 
nunciation, grammar,  and  syntax.  In  the  same  way 
institutions  and  customs,  though  once,  no  doubt,  the 
same  for  all  mankind,  have  developed  in  many  different 
directions.  To  investigate  the  causes  of  this  variety  of 
development  is  the  right  and  the  duty  of  any  student  of 
the  human  species,  so  long  as  he  does  not  conceive  that 
mere  oracular  utterance  of  the  profound  phrase  "  psy- 
chology of  nations"  is  an  adequate  explanation.  It  is 
convenient  to  say  "  Differences  in  language,  religion, 
government,  and  social  institutions,  in  customs  and 
moral  ideas,  depend  on  the  differences  of  national  char- 
acteristics and  modes  of  thought  deducible  from  them, 


126     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

and  subject  to  little  material  change  in  the  course  of 
history."  But  things  are  not  so  simple.  On  the  one 
hand,  descendants  of  a  single  race  are  seen  dividing  into 
several  nations,  widely  differing  in  language,  institu- 
tions, and  customs;  on  the  other,  peoples,  not  demon- 
strably related  by  blood,  are  found  speaking  the  same 
language  and  organizing  their  life  on  a  common  plan. 
These  facts  do  not  support  the  superstition  that  each 
people  represents  a  race  or  type  of  the  human  species, 
possessing  an  organic  character  of  its  own,  and  in  some 
sense  a  soul  that  determines  the  language,  its  policy, 
religion,  etc.,  according  to  a  certain  norm.  Rather  one 
is  inclined  to  see  the  types  of  human  existence  as  deter- 
mined, not  by  any  such  mysterious  organic  peculiarity, 
but  by  the  state  of  civilization  which  they  have  attained. 
This  stage  depends  partly  on  the  influences  of  the  ex- 
ternal world,  climate,  condition  of  the  soil,  and  natural 
resources,  partly  on  less  obvious  circumstances. 

The  gaps  in  this  picture  must  be  filled  up  by  the 
psychology  of  the  individual,  not  by  the  adventurous 
psychology  of  nations.  Each  individual  has  certain 
mental  characteristics  common  to  the  type  and  its  dis- 
tinguishing features.  He  is  a  creature  of  habit.  He 
imitates  what  he  has  seen  before  him  from  his  youth  up. 
He  is  absolutely  credulous  unless  a  strong  interest 
rouses  his  critical  faculty.  He  loves  the  comfort  of 
obedience  to  authority.  A  strong  power  of  suggestion 
is  exercised  upon  him  by  dogmatic  assumptions. 

The  national  differences,  for  whose  explanation  Laza- 
rus and  Steinthal  invented  the  psychology  of  nations, 
can  be  fully  accounted  for  by  the  undeniable  character- 
istics of  individual  psychology.      Some   peoples   write 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     127 

from  left  to  right,  others  from  above  downwards, 
others,  again,  from  right  to  left;  some  burn  their  dead, 
others  bury  them,  the  position,  again,  varying  between 
lying  and  squatting;  some  sit  on  the  ground  with  their 
legs  tucked  under  them,  others  on  an  elevated  seat  with 
a  footstool  and  perpendicular  back;  some  house  under 
one  roof  with  their  animals,  others  apart  from  them; 
some  dwell  in  straggling  villages,  others  build  in  a  circle. 
The  reason  is  that  they  have  always  done  so,  and  not 
otherwise,  and  see  no  reason  for  troubling  to  change 
their  habits  and  discover  new  ones.  And  the  same  ex- 
planation holds  of  the  higher  range  of  peculiarities — 
spe'ech,  institutions,  mental  development  generally.  Of 
course,  one  may  ask,  How  did  the  custom  originate  in 
the  first  instance?  This  difficulty  presents  itself  at  every 
attempt  to  reach  the  final  cause  of  any  set  of  facts.  The 
psychology  of  nations  does  not  settle  it.  A  more  il- 
luminating suggestion  is  that  all  such  habits  as  have  not 
arisen  directly  out  of  the  conditions  of  the  external 
world  date  from  the  appearance  of  isolated  individuals 
of  sufficient  creative  power  to  discover  something  new 
and  impose  it  on  their  fellow-men.  Such  mythical 
figures  float  vaguely  in  the  recollection  of  mankind — 
Cadmus,  Prometheus,  Minos,  Thor,  Moses,  or  the 
divine  heroes  of  whom  Carlyle  speaks  in  his  first  lecture 
on  "  Hero  Worship."  Two  such  heroic  personalities 
fall  almost  within  our  own  generation — Napoleon  and 
Bismarck.  The  full  light  of  history  falls  upon  their  life 
and  activity,  and  reveals  it  to  the  intelligent  under- 
standing as  a  politico-sociological  experiment  on  a 
gigantic  scale.  Within  one  generation  a  complete  trans- 
formation can  be  seen  taking  place,  in  each  of  these  two 


128     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

instances,  in  the  whole  mode  of  thought  of  the  upper 
stratum  of  society  of  two  powerful  nations.  The  peace- 
loving  Frenchman  of  the  eighteenth  century,  inclined 
to  cosmopolitan  views,  and  enthusiastically  proclaiming 
Rousseau's  doctrine  of  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity, 
was  filled  with  Chauvinistic  Imperialism  of  the  most  ad- 
vanced type,  drunk  with  glory,  and  revelling  in  the  poetry 
of  war.  At  the  same  time  the  sentimental,  comfortable 
Germans  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  the  Confed- 
eration, rather  petty  and  bourgeois  in  their  ideas,  and 
with  little  unity  among  them,  disappeared,  and  in  their 
stead  there  rose  up  the  new  Pan-Germanism,  proud, 
hard  and  self-sufficient — or,  at  least,  harsh  and  arro- 
gant— bent  on  spreading  its  power  over  the  world. 
What  can  national  psychology  make  of  this?  What 
becomes  of  its  fundamental  notion  of  permanent  na- 
tional characteristics  ?  The  most  prominent  traits  in  the 
upper  classes  in  France  and  Germany  are  certainly  the 
fruit  of  the  influence  of  two  towering  personalities — 
Bismarck  and  Napoleon — and  not  of  any  peculiarities 
of  the  French  and  German  nations  as  such.  This  ex- 
ample justifies  the  conclusion  that  all  similar  peculiari- 
ties of  a  people  or  group  of  peoples  arise  in  the  same 
way — as  the  effect  of  some  powerful  individual,  un- 
known to  us,  because  partly  prehistoric. 

The  psychology  of  nations  has  adduced  no  trait  that 
is  an  organic  fact,  such  as  the  brain  index,  bodily  struc- 
ture, colour  of  skin,  hair,  and  eyes.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  child  of  one  people,  brought  up,  educated,  and 
dwelling  in  the  midst  of  another,  far  from  disturbing 
or  alien  influences,  will  display  all  the  peculiarities  of 
that  other.     If  any  proof  be  needed,  it  is  enough  to 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     129 

mention  the  names  of  Chamisso  and  De  la  Motte 
Fouque,  Germans;  Gambetta,  Spuller,  Waddington, 
Frenchmen;  Becker  and  Hartenbusch,  Spaniards;  Ar- 
turo  Graf,  Italian;  Petofy  (Petrovitsch),  Magyar. 
The  psychology  of  nations  has  no  more  real  existence 
than  the  psychology  of  the  crowd. 

The  real  thing  is  the  psychology  of  the  individual, 
which  teaches  how  man  copies  the  world  around  him 
and  regularly  exercises  his  imitative  faculty  in  every 
direction.  This  is  one  of  the  fundamental  facts  of  his- 
tory. Man  is  born  with  certain  simple  impulses,  and 
grows  completely  into  the  external  conditions  around 
him.  He  therefore  appears  to  display  national  charac- 
teristics so  long  as  he  bears  the  single  impress  of  a 
certain  set  of  conditions — so  long,  that  is,  as  he  remains 
at  a  stage  of  culture  removed  from  the  influence  of 
active  intercourse.  This  particularity  is  lost  so  soon  as 
the  individual  is  no  longer  rooted  in  the  soil,  when 
goods  and  ideas  begin  to  circulate  freely  between  peo- 
ples, and  mutual  influences  overcome  the  barriers 
between  states  and  the  differences  of  language.  To-day 
one  hears  already  of  the  spirit  of  "  Western  and  Central 
Europe,"  and  European  civilization  is  constantly  spoken 
of;  to-morrow  the  conception  will  be  widened,  and  we 
shall  talk  of  the  soul  of  the  white  races.  Nor  can  even 
this  limitation  be  long  maintained.  Japan,  India,  and 
China  are  every  day  entering  more  fully  into  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  whites,  and  becoming  imbued  with 
their  culture,  methodology,  ethics,  and  aesthetics.  The 
Maoris  of  New  Zealand  don  the  frock-coat  and  var- 
nished boots,  and,  with  the  Republicans  and  Socialists  of 
Hawaii  and  the  Philippines,  begin  to  follow  fast  in  the 


130     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

footsteps  of  their  yellow  brethren,  while  Booker  Wash- 
ington seeks  the  admission  of  the  negro  to  the  cultured 
life.  When  complete  intercommunication  is  estab- 
lished throughout  all  countries  and  races,  and  differences 
removed  and  universal  similarity  effected  by  the  mutual 
interpenetration  of  civilizing  forces,  the  conceptions  of 
race  and  its  psychology  will  cease  to  have  any  semblance 
of  significance.  A  psychology  of  mankind  will  then  be- 
come inevitable.  We  shall  simply,  after  a  wide  detour, 
be  brought  back  to  the  psychology  of  the  individual.  It 
will  be  seen  that,  morbid  disturbances  apart,  men  possess 
a  common  spiritual  foundation  over  and  above  the 
individual  differences  caused  by  greater  or  less  promi- 
nence of  certain  traits.  The  explanation  of  the  fact  that 
large  groups  appear  to  possess  decided  characteristics  of 
their  own,  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  due  to  the  illusion  of  a 
prejudicial  or  superficial  observer,  lies  simply  and  solely 
in  the  stage  of  civilization  attained  by  them,  and  the 
decisive  influence  of  example  upon  them.  A  super- 
psychology  has  no  more  existence  than  a  super-soul. 
The  collective  organism  is  a  mystical  delusion.  Col- 
lectivity is  an  abstract  idea.  Life  and  acturlity  are 
found  only  in  the  study  of  the  individual.  From  the 
study  of  his  feeling,  thought,  and'  action  the  natural 
history  of  the  human  species  may  be  learned,  and  the 
results  of  such  study  are  more  reliable  when  devoted  to 
the  living  than  to  the  dead,  of  whose  minds  we  are  more 
ignorant  than  of  those  of  our  contemporaries  and  our- 
selves. 

It  is  natural  to  us  to  desire  the  most  complete  and 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  species  to  which  we  belong. 
The  means  to  such  knowledge  is  observation,  wholly 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  VIEW  OF  HISTORY     131 

without  bias,  of  the  individual,  and  his  reaction  to  the 
manifold  influences  to  which  he  is  subjected  from  birth 
to  death.  History  may  be  a  form  of  such  fruitful  ob- 
servation as  this,  if  it  be  retrospective  sociology,  in  the 
sense  in  which  I  have  tried  to  define  it.  I  mean  by 
sociology  the  exploration  of  the  psychology  of  the  indi- 
vidual, wherein  lie  the  instincts  and  norms  of  human 
actions,  and  the  origin  of  the  institutions  created  by  man 
as  the  framework  of  his  life,  or  adopted  by  him  because 
they  existed  and  he  sees  no  reason  or  no  possibility  of 
escaping  from  them.  To  a  certain  extent  the  particular 
individual  selected  for  observation  is  indifferent,  always 
provided  that  a  sufficiently  large  number  are  observed 
to  establish  securely  which  traits  are  common  to  them 
all  and  which  represent  a  divergence,  more  or  less  fre- 
quent or  even  unique,  from  the  universal  human 
formula.  Theoretically,  a  complete  anthropology  could 
be  built  up  upon  absolute  knowledge  of  living  man. 
Practically,  however,  this  absolute  knowledge  is  unat- 
tainable. Gaps  and  obscurities  there  always  are  here 
and  there,  and,  moreover,  understanding  of  existing 
conditions  is  assisted  by  knowledge  of  those  that  have 
preceded  them — that  is,  of  their  simple  origins  and 
their  development,  through  increased  complexity,  differ- 
entiation, and  automatism.  History,  therefore,  cannot 
be  omitted  from  a  complete  anthropology.  Political 
and  biographical  history  has  a  place  side  by  side  with 
primitive  history  and  the  history  of  morals  in  a  com- 
plete anthropology,  in  so  far  as  it  throws  light  on  events 
which  are  accompanied  by  unusual  reactions,  such  as  do 
not  occur  in  every  generation,  and  upon  the  extraordi- 
nary possibilities  of  mankind  as  displayed  in  remarkable 


132     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

personalities,  such  as  could  hardly  be  suspected  from  the 
average  type.  To  assist  this  knowledge  of  the  type  by 
striking  examples  is  the  object  of  history,  which  should 
be  a  museum  of  pre-eminent  individual  specimens,  and  a 
record  of  the  behaviour  of  aggregates  under  circum- 
stances that  permit  the  peculiarities  of  the  type  to  be 
clearly  observed.  In  so  far  as  it  is  anything  else,  or  has 
any  other  object,  it  may  possess  aesthetic  value  as  a  work 
of  art,  but  is  wholly  useless  for  science,  and  can  be  neg- 
lected by  the  student  who  aims  at  knowledge  of  the 
human  species. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MAN  AND  NATURE 

Mankind  to-day  appears  to  the  observer  as  the  highest 
and  most  powerful  species  on  the  earth;  the  globe  is 
subject  to  man,  and  completely  dominated  by  him  all 
over  its  solid  surface.  The  sea  escapes  him,  but  fish- 
eries off  the  coast,  in  the  shallows  and  the  deep  sea, 
give  him  control  over  some  at  least  of  its  fauna.  On 
the  continent  and  in  the  air  only  those  animal  and  plant 
species  are  permitted  to  live  which  are  useful,  if  only  to 
provide  an  aesthetic  satisfaction,  or  at  least  harmless. 
Anything  actually  harmful,  anything  that  demands 
precious  space,  is  ruthlessly  exterminated.  Everywhere 
the  beasts  of  prey  that  were  once  dangerous  to  man,  and 
to  some  extent  still  are  so  in  India  and  Central  Africa, 
have  had  to  retire  before  him.  Unable  to  maintain 
themselves,  they  will  disappear  within  a  measurable 
space  of  time,  despite  sentimental  efforts  to  maintain  a 
few  of  them  under  the  protection  of  man  and  preserve 
them  for  show.  The  smaller  species  that,  without 
directly  attacking  man,  are  troublesome  to  him  by 
reason  of  their  numbers,  proximity,  or  offences  against 
his  property,  lie  also  under  sentence  of  death.  War  has 
been  declared  on  the  rat,  and  in  many  places  on  the 
migratory  cricket.  It  may  be  long  and  tedious,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  issue.     The  smaller  the 

133  ' 


134     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

enemy  or  disturber  of  the  peace,  the  more  difficult  is  it 
for  man  to  make  an  end  of  him.  Tigers  and  lions  are 
easily  overcome;  greater  difficulties  are  presented  by 
poisonous  snakes,  rodents,  and  insects.  In  wood  and 
field  to  this  day  he  is  more  afraid  of  the  wood^scarab 
and  the  weevil,  the  moth  and  the  spider,  the  locust 
and  the  phylloxera,  than  the  wild-cat,  wolf,  or  planti- 
grade, and  finds  it  more  difficult  to  defend  himself 
against  the  attacks  of  the  anophela?,  stegomyia,  and 
glossina  which  visit  him  with  the  scourge  of  intermittent 
fever,  yellow  fever,  and  sleeping  sickness,  than  against 
the  claws  and  teeth  of  animals  of  more  considerable  size. 
Even  after  he  has  cleared  off  the  surface  of  the  earth  all 
the  competitors  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  or  subjected 
them  wholly  to  his  will,  he  will  have  to  fight  for  safety, 
health,  and  life  with  microscopic  enemies.  In  this 
contest  he  has  to  take  the  defensive;  it  will  be  far  more 
protracted  and  far  more  difficult  than  any  other  he  has 
waged  all  his  earthly  existence  and  struggle  for  mastery 
on  this  planet.  Long  after  the  jungle  is  as  safe  as  the 
high  street  of  a  big  town,  man  must  walk  in  terror  of 
tuberculosis,  syphilis,  cancer,  leprosy,  cholera,  and  other 
diseases  caused  by  fungi  and  protozoa.  But  in  the  end, 
and  that  in  no  impossibly  remote  future,  he  will  conquer 
even  these  foes.  He  cannot,  indeed,  exterminate  them 
— the  saprophytes  will  always  be  able  to  elude  him,  but 
he  can  keep  at  a  distance  those  that  cause  disease.  Then 
the  continued  existence  of  animal  and  plant  will  be 
determined  by  his  good  pleasure,  the  surface  of  the 
earth  will  be  his,  and  man  his  only  living  enemy. 

He  has  not  always  occupied  this  dominant  position 
on  the  earth.     Before  his  time  it  was   inhabited  by 


MAN  AND  NATURE  135 

mightier  beings,  whose  fragmentary  remains  fills  him 
with  amazement  and  horror — the  land  and  sea  species 
of  megalosaurus,  which  devoured  animals  and  plants; 
the  monstrous  early  mammals;  the  terrible  primeval 
cats,  with  teeth  that  tore  like  swords ;  the  racial  ancestors 
of  the  beasts  of  prey,  some  of  which  existed  within  the 
lifetime  of  man.  After  these  mighty  organisms,  that 
developed  freely  amid  natural  conditions  that  for  them 
were  highly  favourable,  man  made  his  appearance, 
miserably  small  and  weak  in  comparison  with  the  bron- 
tosaurus  or  dinoceras,  and  insignificant  by  the  side  of 
the  machaerodus,  that  had  the  graceful  form  and  pro- 
nounced colouring  of  the  tiger.  No  physical  attribute 
marked  him  out  as  the  future  conqueror  of  his  prede- 
cessors and  sole  ruler  upon  the  earth,  except  the  com- 
paratively large  brain  that  set  even  the  monkey-man 
above  all  earlier  animal  forces. 

Man's  original  position  was  that  of  all  those  who 
shared  the  earth  with  him.  He  was  cradled  in  condi- 
tions that  favoured  his  life  and  development.  Other- 
wise, had  such  conditions  not  been  present,  his  species 
could  never  have  arisen  at  all.  He  found  the  degree 
of  heat,  the  meteoric  conditions,  and  other  comforts 
necessary  to  him,  and  he  was  well  pleased.  For  him, 
as  for  all  other  creatures,  nature  spread  her  table  with 
meat  and  drink  for  the  trouble  of  taking.  His  only 
care  was  to  protect  himself  against  the  superior  foes 
whose  quarry  he  was.  Had  these  natural  conditions 
remained  unchanged,  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  man 
would  never  have  risen  above  the  stage  of  the  larger 
apes  to-day,  in  spite  of  the  possibilities,  obviously  latent 
within  him,  starting,  as  he  did,  at  the  end  of  a  line  of 


136     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

development  characterized  by  a  slow  but  continual  in- 
crease in  the  proportion  borne  by  the  nervous  tissue  to 
the  rest  of  the  bodily  structure.  Certainly  nothing  is 
known  of  man  in  his  earliest  stages;  but  it  can  be 
unhesitatingly  maintained  that  nature  stood  his  friend 
and  ally  from  the  moment  of  his  first  appearance  upon 
earth,  while,  like  all  the  other  creatures  on  earth,  air, 
or  water,  he  had  enemies  to  face  in  the  animals  among 
whom  he  lived.  But  in  the  course  of  periods  of  time, 
whose  duration  cannot  be  exactly  measured,  this  con- 
dition of  things  was  changed,  either  gradually  or  rap- 
idly. Over  a  great  part  of  the  area  he  lived  in  the 
climate  changed  profoundly  from  tropical  or  subtropical 
to  arctic  or  semi-arctic.  At  the  same  time  the  relation 
of  man  to  the  surrounding  world  was  transformed. 
Nature,  his  mother  and  friend,  became  his  most  deadly 
enemy.  To  defend  and  protect  himself  against  her 
he  had  to  turn  to  his  fellow-creatures,  and  treat  them 
no  longer  as  prey  after  the  fashion  of  the  wild  beasts, 
but  as  fellow  workers  and  servants. 

Climatic  change  did  not  affect  man  alone.  It  swept 
away  all  the  other  organisms  that  had  shared  with  him 
the  warmth  of  perpetual  summer  and  found  it  necessary 
for  their  existence.  Those  to  whom  nature  no  longer 
supplied  this  essential  element  either  went  under  or 
made  great  efforts  to  adapt  themselves  physically  to  new 
conditions,  and  succumbed  after  some  struggle  when 
they  failed  to  do  so.  They  grew  a  closer  and  warmer 
coat  of  fur;  they  altered  their  organs  for  biting  and 
chewing  so  as  to  feed  in  a  new  way;  they  adopted  new 
habits  such  as  hibernation,  breeding  at  certain  seasons, 
and  migrating  at  certain  times;  and  as  a  result  emerged 


MAN  AND  NATURE  137 

from  their  affliction  very  different  creatures,  accom- 
modated to  the  new  conditions  of  their  natural  exist- 
ence. 

Man,  and  man  alone  of  living  creatures,  neither  sub- 
mitted to  the  sentence  of  death  pronounced  by  nature 
against  all  the  creatures  to  whom  she  denied  the  means 
for  continued  existence,  nor  directed  his  efforts  to  alter 
his  corporeal  organization  to  suit  murderous  natural 
conditions.  He  made  some  alteration  in  his  diet,  took 
to  eating  meat  instead  of  the  fruits,  roots,  eggs,  jelly- 
and  shell-fish  that  were  natural  to  him ;  but  in  essentials 
he  remained  unchanged.  He  did  not  grow  a  fur  coat. 
On  the  contrary,  he  lost  the  covering  of  hair  that  had 
not  been  a  protection  against  the  cold  so  much  as  a 
means  of  strengthening  his  skin  and  preserving  it 
against  insects,  sunburn,  and  rain,  and  perhaps  of  adorn- 
ing it.  He  did  not  harden  himself  to  bid  defiance  to  the 
open  weather,  after  the  fashion  of  the  beasts  of  the 
fields  and  of  the  woods.  He  did  not  strain  after  the 
mane  and  claws  of  the  lion,  the  iron  muscle  and  com- 
plicated digestion  of  the  cud-chewing  ox.  On  the 
contrary,  he  invented  a  mode  of  adjustment  surpassing 
the  ingenuity  of  any  previous  creature  on  the  earth. 
Instead  of  altering  himself,  he  directed  his  efforts  to 
the  alteration  of  external  conditions.  Instead  of  trying 
to  fit  his  organism  into  an  environment  that  had  become 
incompatible  with  his  needs,  he  tried  to  adapt  that 
environment  to  his  organism  and  its  needs. 

This  new  and  peculiarly  human  method  of  adjustment 
is  still  going  on,  and  will  probably  never  cease.  It  is 
incessantly  becoming  more  delicate,  skilful,  and  com- 
plete; all  man's  gifts  are  devoted  to  it;  it  is,  as  a  matter 


138     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  fact,  the  sole  distinct  meaning  which  the  impartial 
observer  can  discern  in  the  course  of  history;  it  deter- 
mines all  human  events  that  are  determined  by  the  will 
of  man  rather  than  the  order  of  nature.  According  to 
all  biological  laws,  man  should  have  disappeared  from 
the  surface  of  the  earth  with  the  first  Ice  Age,  just  as 
every  other  living  thing  before  him  vanished  so  soon 
as  the  free  gifts  of  nature  no  longer  satisfied  its  organic 
needs.  But  he  maintained  himself  in  defiance  of  nature. 
Instead  of  submitting,  he  advanced  resolutely  to  the 
combat.  His  survival  is  a  rebellion  against  the  sen- 
tence of  death  pronounced  against  him,  and  still  valid. 
Only  a  small  tract  around  the  equator  affords  him  pro- 
tection and  an  asylum  from  her  pursuit — that  region 
which  is  the  last  refuge  of  this  kind  of  men — the  greater 
apes — who  once  inhabited  the  whole  earth,  but  now  are 
driven  back  into  the  tropical  forests.  There,  too,  a 
few  branches  of  the  human  race — Australians,  Weddas, 
Central  Africans,  and  perhaps  the  Indians  and  Bra- 
zilians of  Central  America — could  live  in  very  nearly 
the  primitive  existence  of  our  forefathers,  but  for  the 
pressure  exercised  upon  them  by  more  developed  races. 
As  it  is,  spurred  by  no  incessant  pressure  of  necessity 
to  exercise  constant  exertion,  they  have  remained  com- 
fortable and,  from  their  own  point  of  view,  happy  in 
the  primitive  condition  of  mankind;  they  have  escaped 
the  progress  imposed  on  less  favourably  situated  races. 
But  outside  this  zone — all  that  is  left  of  the  earthly 
paradise — nature  denies  to  man  all  that  he  requires,  as 
Rome  denied  it  to  the  proscribed.  Everywhere,  and 
at  every  hour,  he  has  to  wrest  from  her  the  necessities 
of  existence  with  his  own  hands.     From  birth  to  death 


MAN  AND  NATURE  139 

he  surrounds  himself  with  artificial  conditions;  if  he 
neglects  them  for  a  moment,  his  life  is  in  imminent 
danger.  His  body  has  to  be  protected.  In  very  warm 
climates,  clothing,  like  tattooes  and  scars,  the  various 
ornaments  in  nose  and  lips,  the  hanging  of  trinkets 
round  the  neck,  on  breast  and  limbs,  may  have  origi- 
nated as  a  form  of  adornment  and  distinction;  but  in 
colder  latitudes  the  covering  of  the  body  was  mainly 
due  to  the  necessity  of  keeping  warm.  Man  makes 
his  supreme  discovery,  never  surpassed  or  equalled — 
the  kindling  and  keeping  up  of  fire.  With  its  aid  he 
secures  the  degree  of  warmth  helpful  and  agreeable 
to  him,  which  the  chemical  action  of  his  own  cells 
cannot  provide;  by  using  fire  in  the  preparation  of  his 
foods  he  simplifies  digestion,  and  is  enabled  to  extract 
nutriment  of  various  natural  kinds  that  he  could  not 
otherwise  have  enjoyed.  Moreover,  he  acquires  an  in- 
strument that  spares  much  expenditure  of  muscular 
strength,  and  makes  possible  exertions  that  muscle  alone 
could  not  have  accomplished.  Many  animals  whose 
absolute  needs  are  satisfied  by  nature  need  over  and 
above  a  nest  or  shelter,  and  man  most  of  all.  He  soon 
ceased  to  depend  on  the  holes  which  he  found  ready 
made,  and  began  to  dig  out  or  build  up  roofs  and  walls. 
In  this  way  he  secured,  within  his  own  small  circle,  that 
protection  from  the  wind,  that  dryness  and  warmth, 
that  the  open  air  no  longer  afforded.  He  artificially 
created  the  climate  that  he  thought  suited  him.  With 
ever  active  inventiveness  and  ardent  zeal,  he  wrested 
from  his  environment  everything  that  it  denied  him, 
which  he  could  not  as  yet  do  without.  His  whole  ex- 
istence is  as  paradoxical  as  that  of  the  diver  in  the 


i4o     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

depths  of  the  sea.  Destruction  threatens  it  whenever 
one  of  the  manifold  precautions  erected  by  man  for  his 
own  preservation  is  disturbed.  Goethe's  Homunculus, 
who  can  only  live  in  the  retort  in  which  he  was  created, 
and  must  instantly  perish  with  the  breaking  of  its  glass, 
appears  one  of  the  most  far-fetched  and  unreal  crea- 
tions of  the  poetic  imagination.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  reality  itself,  a  perfect  symbol  of  the  relations 
of  man  to  nature.  The  artificial  protections  that  enclose 
him  are  like  the  glass  retort;  if  he  emerge  from  them 
and  stand,  naked  as  he  was  born,  face  to  face  with 
nature,  he  must  perish  without  hope,  and  descend  to 
the  fossils  which  once  lived  and  flourished  so  long  as 
nature  permitted,  and  disappeared  without  a  struggle 
when  warmth  and  nourishment  were  withdrawn  from 
them. 

Deep  within  man's  subconsciousness  there  lurks  a 
shadow  perception  of  his  unnatural  relation  to  his  en- 
vironment, which  finds  vague  expression  in  myths  and 
imaginative  inventions.  Is  not  the  "  Land  of  Cock- 
ayne "  simply  a  picture  of  the  existence  once  natural 
to  man,  the  existence  of  every  other  living  thing  except 
himself?  Does  not  the  caterpillar  find  in  a  nut  a 
whole  mountain  of  spices  that  tastes  to  it  more  delicious 
than  millet  pap  does  to  man?  Does  not  the  spider 
find  the  little  animals  that  slide  down  into  its  gullet 
as  tasty  as  any  pigeon?  A  pigeon  is  always  thought 
of  as  roast  by  man,  and  nature  never  provided  it  in 
that  form.  But  man's  imagination  works  on  a  basis 
of  ideas  developed  from  his  artificial  existence.  He 
forgets  that  in  the  real  land  of  Cockayne  pigeons  were 
not  roast,  soup  was  not  cooked,  pigs  not  made  into 


MAN  AND  NATURE  141 

sausages  or  eaten  with  knives  and  forks;  there  man 
enjoyed  everything  in  the  state  in  which  it  was  pro- 
vided by  nature,  without  any  alteration  or  preparation. 
When  he  really  wishes  to  rise  to  great  heights  of  fancy, 
he  pictures  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  He 
longs  for  an  existence  without  labour — the  exact  oppo- 
site of  the  reality  that  he  knows  and  sees  in  every  human 
life.  Labour,  his  daily  habit,  his  constant  experience, 
and  the  command  laid  upon  him  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave,  never  appears  in  his  dreams;  it  is  banished 
from  the  vision  inspired  by  his  thirst  for  bliss.  Al- 
though in  this  dream  of  happiness  he  sees  himself 
surrounded,  not  only  by  the  delights  that  nature  can 
offer,  but  by  all  the  products  of  labour — palaces,  gor- 
geous raiment,  rich  vessels,  spicy  dishes,  and  women 
beautifully  attired — it  does  not  occur  to  him  that  since 
these  creations  must  be  someone's  work,  his  land  of  joy 
cannot  be  open  to  all;  his  happiness  is  based  upon  the 
effort  and  abstinence  of  others,  and  therefore  involves 
exploitation  and  cruelty.  This  is  natural  enough,  since 
his  imagination  is  using  the  material  of  experience, 
while  entirely  neglecting  the  law  of  causality  that  gov- 
erns reality. 

It  is  seldom  realized  that  the  contradiction  between 
life  and  dream,  the  actual  and  the  desired,  that  runs 
through  the  whole  of  human  thought  and  feeling,  repre- 
sents a  half-unconscious  recognition,  a  vague  appre- 
hension of  the  unnatural  conditions  of  human  existence. 
If  man  dwelt  under  the  conditions  common  to  all  other 
organisms  on  earth,  his  desires  would  be  to  prolong  his 
habits  and  experiences  there,  not  to  reverse  them  and 
fly  to  something  else.     One  would  imagine  a  lion's 


142      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

paradise,  if  he  could  imagine  one,  to  be  more  success- 
ful hunting;  a  mole's,  better  meadow-land  for  burrow- 
ing in ;  a  stork's,  to  stand  in  the  swamp  and  catch  frogs. 
One  would  expect  them  to  keep  to  the  line  of  their 
customary  activities.  Man  alone  conceives  of  paradise 
as  a  spot  in  which  he  may  escape  from  his  usual  ac- 
tivity. He  alone  pictures  a  golden  age  where  Adam 
Smith's  theory  of  labour  as  the  source  of  wealth  would 
be  false.  The  Hebrew  Bible,  one  of  the  earliest  prod- 
ucts of  the  creative  spirit,  expressly  designates  labour 
as  foreign  to  man's  original  nature,  a  visitation  and 
punishment  for  his  sins.  The  theory  is  remarkably 
profound,  but  the  relation  between  guilt  and  labour  an 
inverted  one.  Labour  is  not  a  consequence  of  sin,  but 
sin  a  consequence  of  labour.  In  a  state  of  nature  man 
could  not  sin.  He  found  his  table  laid;  there  was  no 
one  whose  share  of  the  goods  of  earth  he  need  envy  or 
take  from  him.  It  was  the  necessity  of  building  up 
artificial  conditions  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  needs,  of 
exerting  himself,  of  working,  that  led  to  that  indiffer- 
ence to  fellow-men  in  which  all  the  acts  and  attempted 
acts  that  we  call  immorality,  sin,  guilt,  crime,  arose. 
Sin  appeared  in  the  world  on  the  day  when  nature 
ceased  to  nourish,  warm,  and  fondle  man,  and  compelled 
him  to  choose  between  toil  and  extinction. 

I  have  described  how  this  compulsion  started  man's 
intellectual  development  and  explains  the  course  of  his 
history.  At  the  same  time  I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact 
that  the  formula  does  not  cover  the  whole  field.  It 
affords  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  low  level  of 
culture  at  which  the  peoples  of  the  equator  have  re- 
mained, probably  as  a  survival,  down  to  the  present, 


MAN  AND  NATURE  143 

of  the  original  species.  The  spur  of  necessity  has  not 
touched  them;  they  have  not  had  to  fight  for  their 
existence.  But  what  about  the  people,  say,  of  Terra 
del  Fuego?  Towards  them  nature  is  as  fierce  an  enemy 
as  when  the  Ice  Age  set  in.  She  tortures  them  with 
hunger,  darkness  and  storms,  and  rains  intolerable  blows 
upon  them.  They  have  no  comfort.  They  live  a 
miserable  existence  in  which  there  is  hardly  any  room 
for  satisfaction.  And  yet  they  have  done  nothing  to 
rise  above  their  wretched  lot.  The  enmity  of  nature 
has  not  roused  them  to  defence.  They  have  invented 
no.protection  like  the  civilization  of  other  races.  Nec- 
essity alone  cannot,  therefore,  raise  man  to  conquering 
independence ;  there  must  be  faculties  within  him  which 
enable  him  to  combat  the  hostility  of  nature  effectively; 
and  it  is  obvious  that  these  faculties  are  not  present  in 
all  men  to  the  same  degree.  But,  because  many  have 
proved  incapable  of  learning  from  necessity,  it  does  not 
follow  that  it  is  false  to  assume,  as  the  origin  of  all 
human  development,  the  fact  that  unfavourable  condi- 
tions have  compelled  man  to  be  independent:  but  that 
there  must  have  existed  at  a  very  early  period  inequal- 
ities of  natural  endowment  within  the  species,  whose 
inheritance  accounts  for  the  origin  of  different  races. 

An  important  question  arises  at  this  point,  to  which 
no  answer  can  be  given.  What  would  have  happened 
had  the  Ice  Age  not  supervened,  had  the  conditions 
under  which  the  species  originated  lasted  for  ever,  or 
altered  so  slowly  that  there  would  have  been  ample  time 
for  man  to  adapt  himself  to  his  new  environment  by 
purely  physical  changes,  and  no  necessity  to  prolong 
his  existence  by  artificial  means,?     Would  he  have  re- 


144     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

mained  a  beast?  Would  he,  without  external  com- 
pulsion, by  virtue  of  inward  impulses  alone,  have  risen 
above  the  level  of  the  apes?  The  question  has  more 
than  a  merely  human  import:  it  includes  the  essential 
nature  and  significance  of  the  universe  as  a  whole. 

The  question  of  the  laws  of  human  development  is 
intimately  connected  with  the  question  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  world — its  cause,  its  direction,  its  goal,  its 
rhythmic  movement — and  to  this  vast  riddle  we  can  find 
no  solution,  for  all  our  guessing.  That  the  indispen- 
sable idea  of  the  eternity  of  the  universe  is  incompatible 
with  the  idea  of  development  needs  no  proof.  It  is 
clear  that  development — a  succession  of  events  in  time — 
must  have  a  starting-point,  a  beginning,  a  continuation, 
and  a  climax.  But  in  eternity  no  starting-point  is  pos- 
sible— one  must  always  go  back  to  eternity  again.  In 
eternity  any  chain  of  circumstances,  however  long  a 
time  it  may  have  lasted,  must,  within  eternity,  have 
attained  its  most  remote  possible  goal,  and  so  be  closed 
in.  Eternity  allows  to  human  thought  only  the  idea 
of  eternal  rest  or  of  eternal  cyclical  movement.  The 
only  significance  that  could  then  be  attached  to  develop- 
ment within  the  universe  would  be  that  of  the  eternal 
repetition  of  the  process  of  differentiating  simple  con- 
ditions In  terms  of  ever  greater  complexity  and  variety, 
and  then  simplifying  the  complexity  and  variety:  the 
process  that  Herbert  Spencer  described  as  an  unchang- 
ing and  unvarying  cycle  of  integration  and  dissociation. 
In  a  sense  development  does  exist  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  mortal  man  enclosed  within  one  of  these 
eternally  recurring  cycles.  He  witnesses  isolated  phases 
of  integration  and  dissociation,  and  can  observe  changes 


MAN  AND  NATURE  145 

that  he  may  interpret  as  progress  or  retrogression.  But 
he  never  sees  a  whole  cycle,  far  less  a  succession  of 
cycles.  He  is  so  far  justified,  then,  in  rejecting  the 
annihilating  idea  of  an  unchanging,  eternal  similarity 
in  the  universe,  and  finding,  in  his  weakness,  more  profit 
and  encouragement  in  the  notion  of  development. 
Moreover,  it  is  rational  to  assume  that  the  course  of 
development  followed  by  our  solar  system,  which  has 
created  the  planets  and  their  satellites  out  of  primitive 
vapour,  the  cool  solidity  of  the  life-bearing  earth  from 
a  fiery  rain  of  cosmic  drops,  and  highly  differentiated 
mammalia  and  plants  from  unicellular  organisms — that 
that  course  did  not  stop  at  the  monkey-man,  the  pygmies 
of  the  Nyanza  or  the  Weddas.  On  the  contrary,  we 
may  assume  that  the  forces  that  have  gradually  made 
vertebrates  and  animals  in  human  form  out  of  the 
worms  would,  under  the  most  favourable  conditions 
of  natural  existence,  have  finally  developed  primitive 
men  to  thinkers  with  mighty  craniums  and  brains  weigh- 
ing from  1,800  to  2,000  grammes — men  capable  of 
all  the  knowledge  to  which  we  have  attained  to-day, 
although  they  might  not  have  risen  to  our  technical 
achievements,  which  would  be  unnecessary  to  them.  At 
the  same  time,  it  is  highly  probable  that  this  advance 
would  have  proceeded  incomparably  more  slowly  than 
when  existence  itself  depended  on  adjustment  to  hostile 
natural  conditions.  This  can  be  seen  from  the  duration 
of  the  actual  stages  in  development.  The  oldest  mam- 
malia, monotremes,  and  marsupials  appear  in  the  keuper 
bed  of  the  trias,  in  which  the  existence  of  men  is  doubt- 
ful. The  first  certain  date  for  their  appearance  is 
the  quaternary  epoch.     The  time  between  the  trias  and 


146     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  transformations  effected  by  the  floods  covers  cer- 
tainly tens — according  to  many  geologists,  hundreds — 
of  millions  of  years;  it  was  then  that  the  life  of  man 
upon  earth  arose.  Man  remained  in  the  first  stage, 
if  not  for  millions,  at  least  for  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  years  without  making  any  visible  progress.  It  was 
not  till  the  first  Stone  Age  that  he  began  to  emerge 
from  a  purely  animal  state.  Then  the  first  faint  dawn 
of  civilization  begins.  Traces  of  coal  and  ashes,  marks 
of  burning  on  bones,  show  that  fire  was  beginning  to  be 
known;  clumsy  attempts  at  stone-carving  mark  the 
awakening  of  the  creative  faculty  of  the  intellect. 
Maybe  100,000  years,  or,  according  to  Dr.  Mortillet, 
238,000  years  separate  us  from  the  man  of  Neander- 
thal; hardly  more  than  20,000  years  from  the  man  of 
Golutre,  Le  Moustier,  Chelles,  or  Acheul.  The  man 
of  Neanderthal  was  not,  in  all  probability,  subject  to 
the  necessity  of  fighting  for  his  existence,  but  life  had 
begun  to  be  a  hard  struggle  for  the  man  of  the  earliest 
Stone  Age. 

Let  us  now  look  back  over  the  course  of  develop- 
ment, and  observe  its  tempo.  From  the  appearance  of 
the  first  mammalia  to  the  arrival  of  man,  an  incalcula- 
ble period,  hundreds  of  millions  of  years.  From  the 
arrival  of  man  to  the  last  Ice  Age,  contemporaneous 
with  the  beginning  of  intellectual  effort  and  its  fruit, 
civilization,  several  hundred  thousands  of  years.  From 
the  last  Ice  Age  that  affected  man,  and  the  first  Stone 
Age,  to  the  institution  of  organized  political  life  in 
Asia  and  around  the  Eastern  Mediterranean,  about 
fifteen  thousand  years.  From  the  earliest  Assyrian  and 
Egyptian  monuments  and  inscriptions,  down  to  the  be- 


MAN  AND  NATURE  147 

ginning  of  really  scientific  knowledge,  about  seven  thou- 
sand years.  From  the  beginning  of  modern  science 
and  the  utilization  of  natural  forces  on  a  large  scale, 
which  it  rendered  possible,  down  to  the  developed 
mechanics  of  to-day,  with  its  use  of  the  microscope, 
radiograph,  and  electricity,  and  its  advanced  physical 
and  chemical  powers,  about  a  hundred  years.  Thus, 
to  develop  from  an  animal  to  Lavoisier  took  about 
twenty  thousand  years,  from  Lavoisier  till  to-day  some- 
thing over  a  hundred.  While  the  species  probably 
remained  in  the  condition  of  the  men  of  the  Neander- 
thal for  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years,  is  there 
anything  rash  or  abitrary  in  the  assumption  that  this 
immense  acceleration  of  the  rhythm  of  development  was 
not  merely  contemporaneous  with  the  sudden  appear- 
ance of  the  last  Ice  Age,  but  conditioned  by  it?  that 
without  that  alteration  of  environment  man  would  not 
to-day  have  advanced  much  beyond  the  Neanderthal 
stage,  and  that  the  savages  of  the  equator  might  repre- 
sent the  most  developed  type?  The  supposition  at  any 
rate  rests  upon  the  fact  that  wherever  nature  has  spread 
her  table  for  man,  and  freed  him  from  the  necessity  to 
provide  shelter  and  clothing,  he  has  remained  at  the 
lowest  stage  of  culture  and  civilization.  We  may  go 
further.  Even  if  it  be  admitted  that  within  the  limits 
of  the  cyclical  movement  of  the  universe  there  exists  in 
man,  as  in  all  other  forms  of  life  upon  the  planet,  an 
impulse  towards  development  that  might  have  led  him 
on  to  supreme  knowledge  even  without  the  necessity  of 
adaptation,  such  progress  must  have  been  extraordinarily 
much  slower — so  slow,  indeed,  that  we  may  ask  our- 
selves whether  under  such  conditions  the  species  would 


148      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

have  survived  its  attainment.  For  it  is  highly  probable 
that  the  existence  of  the  earth,  or  at  least  of  its  power 
to  sustain  life,  is  limited  in  time,  and  quite  possible  that 
it  might  reach  the  end  of  its  course  before  humanity 
had  attained  the  goal  of  its  development.  Thus,  while 
gradual  refrigeration  had  operated  to  accelerate  man's 
intellectual  growth,  the  disappearance  of  water  and  air 
would  have  destroyed  a  race  whose  instincts  might  have 
brought  them  to  great  heights  in  the  domain  of  the 
creative  imagination,  but  not  to  rationalizing  knowl- 
edge. Life  on  earth  would  then  have  come  to  an  end 
without  any  scientific  view  of  the  world  as  a  whole. 

We  may  leave  these  possibilities  on  one  side.  Experi- 
ence has  established  that,  with  the  exception  of  the 
human  species,  no  living  thing  can  survive  except  under 
favourable  natural  conditions.  If  the  conditions  be- 
come unfavourable,  they  either  adapt  their  physical 
organization  to  the  change,  or,  if  they  cannot,  perish 
irretrievably.  Man  is  the  sole  living  thing  upon  the 
earth  that  refuses  to  be  exterminated  by  an  unfavour- 
able environment,  and  defends  himself  actively  against 
nature  by  the  invention  of  artificial  conditions.  Instead 
of  adapting  his  skin,  his  digestive  apparatus,  and  the 
means  by  which  he  moves  from  place  to  place,  he  con- 
fined himself  to  adaptation  by  his  brain,  the  most  highly 
differentiated  part  of  his  system.  Why  we  do  not 
know,  and  at  the  present  stage  of  our  knowledge  it  is 
bootless  to  inquire.  Once  for  all  we  possess  a  brain 
relatively  heavier  and  more  efficient  than  that  of  any 
other  creature;  once  for  all  we  are  the  final  stage  of  that 
process  of  development  from  the  unicellular  organism 
that  had,  by  the  last  Ice  Age,  produced  a  creature  capa- 


MAN  AND  NATURE  149 

ble,  as  it  proved,  of  concentrated  and  sustained  atten- 
tion. All  that  was  required  for  success  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  arose  from  this  single  capacity  in  man. 
Through  his  capacity  to  attend  he  learned  to  observe 
phenomena  with  understanding,  and  gradually  to  differ- 
entiate the  permanent,  and  therefore  essential,  features 
from  those  that  were  transitory,  and  therefore  inessen- 
tial. Through  it,  too,  he  acquired  the  power  of  ab- 
stract thought,  of  generalization  and  logical  deduction, 
comprehended  the  causal  connection  of  events,  and  was 
able  at  the  last  to  create  conditions  in  which  phenomena 
favourable  to  himself  could  appear.  This  was  the  test 
of  the  exactitude  of  his  observation  and  the  accuracy 
of  his  conclusions;  it  established  his  power;  it  enabled 
him  to  use  for  the  maintenance,  protection,  and  enrich- 
ment of  his  own  existence  some  at  least  of  those  natural 
forces  that  would  have  destroyed  him  had  he  offered 
no  resistance. 

A  phenomenon  unique  since  the  formation  of  the 
globe  was  thus  presented  when  one  living  species,  man- 
kind, finding  the  conditions  of  existence  offered  by 
nature  to  be  impossible,  created  artificial  ones  by  means 
of  a  brain  that  warded  off  dangers,  and  facilitated,  or 
even  created,  the  satisfaction  of  its  needs.  Equally 
new  was  another  phenomenon  which  developed  from 
the  first,  and  in  close  connection  with  it — parasitism 
within  the  species.  Sycophancy  is  of  frequent  occur- 
rence in  nature  among  plants  as  well  as  animals.  One 
animal  species  will  subdue  another,  and  instead  of  de- 
stroying it  for  prey,  or  using  it,  as  the  ants  do  the  wood- 
lice,  for  some  sort  of  domestic  service,  make  it  work 
regularly  for  them  as  is  again  -the  practice  of  the  ants. 


150     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Cannibalism  is  also  practised,  though  it  is  exceptional, 
and  comparatively  rare.  Certain  insects,  possibly  cer- 
tain fishes,  certainly  murines  and  wolves,  do  eat  their 
weaker  or  sickly  fellows,  independently  of  other  food. 
On  the  other  hand,  man  is  the  only  creature  who  lives 
upon  his  fellows,  and  seeks  the  satisfaction  of  his  needs, 
not  from  nature,  but  from  other  men;  who  directs  his 
efforts  rather  to  subjugating  and  systematically  exploit- 
ing his  fellow-men  than  to  discovering  natural  resources 
for  himself. 

This  parasitic  impulse  is  not  a  primitive  instinct  in 
man.  It  does  not  appear  among  the  few  tribes  who  are 
still  living  in  a  state  of  nature,  with  whom,  accord- 
ing to  the  testimony  of  travellers,  slavery  and  every 
form  of  personal  service  or  ownership,  theft,  robbery, 
and  murder  with  intent  to  rob,  are  alike  unknown.  It 
does  not  occur  among  apes.  It  is,  in  fact,  incompre- 
hensible so  long  as  the  conditions  of  existence  of  the 
species  are  determined  by  nature.  When  nature  is 
cook  and  waiter,  the  table  she  spreads  for  one  is  spread 
for  all,  and  no  one  can  feel  any  desire  to  wrest  from 
his  neighbour  by  force  or  fraud  what  each  can  take  from 
the  common  store  without  any  struggle  or  hindrance. 
Beasts  of  prey  go  on  the  chase,  singly  or  in  packs,  with- 
out expecting  or  desiring  that  anyone  should  do  their 
hunting  for  them.  We  may  assume  that  the  activities 
necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  wants  are,  in  the  case 
of  all  creatures  living  under  natural  conditions,  accom- 
panied by  pleasurable  sensations  that  would  be  unwill- 
ingly renounced.  Primitive  man  himself  would  have 
preferred  to  weave  his  own  roof  of  leaves,  to  bring  his 
own  foliage  and  moss  to  make  his  couch  soft,  gather 


MAN  AND  NATURE  151 

birds'-nests,  and  dig  roots  for  himself,  to  having  this 
done  for  him  by  others.  But,  when  external  conditions 
frowned  upon  him,  he  began  to  feel  that,  since  nature 
no  longer  provided  for  him,  it  was  pleasant  that  his 
fellow-men  should  do  so.  Parasitism  arose  by  the  oper- 
ation of  the  law  of  least  effort.  It  is  easier  and  pleas- 
anter  to  use  the  finished  product  of  the  work  of  others 
than  to  wrest  raw  material  from  nature;  and  it  is 
obvious  that  when  some  men  are  weak,  cowardly,  and 
simple,  less  trouble,  attention,  endurance,  inventiveness 
and  ingenuity  are  needed  to  seize  the  necessities  of  life 
from  them  than  to  provide  them  for  oneself. 

Parasitism  thus  arises  out  of  the  original  inequality 
of  men.  All  experience  is  against  the  belief,  expressed 
by  Plato  in  the  "  Republic,"  in  the  original  equality  of 
man.  No  example  of  equality  between  the  individuals 
of  a  series  or  species  is  to  be  found  among  the  heavenly 
bodies,  or  the  material  substances  of  which  our  earth  is 
composed,  among  the  crystals,  or  any  order  of  living 
things.  Aristotle  rightly  departs  from  this  view  of  his 
master.  He  teaches  that  among  men  some  are  born  to 
command,  and  others  to  obey.  But  in  this  statement 
cause  and  effect  are  confused.  The  faculties  of  com- 
mand and  obedience  are  consequences  of  original  in- 
equality. This  inequality  is  the  fundamental  fact. 
From  it  the  mutual  relations  of  men  have  been  devel- 
oped; in  it  almost  all  social  institutions  take  their  rise. 
Few  of  them  serve  for  the  exploitation  of  natural  re- 
source, the  great  majority  for  the  exploitation  of  the 
many  by  the  few.  By  this  fact  the  State,  laws,  even 
morals,  and  the  course  of  human  history  have  been  de- 
termined.    Any  investigation  which  goes  deeper  than 


152     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

unimportant  and  misleading  superficialities  must  recog- 
nize, as  the  determining  factor  in  almost  all  historical 
events,  this  inequality  among  men,  and  the  attempt  on 
the  part  of  a  person  or  a  nation  to  gain  an  advantage 
from  the  consciousness  of  it. 

The  instinct  of  self-preservation  exists  in  man,  as  in 
all  other  living  creatures,  and  probably  to  an  even 
stronger  degree.  This  appears  in  his  defiance  of  those 
unfavourable  natural  conditions  to  which  all  other 
species  submitted,  often  without  any  attempt  at  resist- 
ance beyond  generally  immaterial  corporeal  adjustments. 
In  consequence  of  man's  unnatural  way  of  life,  the 
instinct  itself  has  undergone  such  profound  transforma- 
tions that  it  often  appears  so  disguised  that  it  is  difficult 
to  recognize  it.  The  fierceness  of  the  struggle  for 
existence  aroused  a  tendency  to  parasitism,  as  involving 
less  effort  than  direct  conflict  with  murderous  nature. 
And  parasitism,  in  itself  a  special  development  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  adapted  to  meet  the  hos- 
tility of  nature,  set  up  in  its  turn  a  number  of  secondary 
instincts  that  would  have  been  useless  to  man  had  he 
lived  under  such  favourable  conditions  as  would  have 
enabled  him  to  satisfy  his  needs  without  trouble  or 
effort,  but  were  useful  and  even  necessary  when  he 
must  make  his  fellows  servants  of  his  will,  and  has  to 
live  by  plunder  and  by  sycophancy. 

Parasitism  itself,  in  its  original  and  crudest  form,  is 
mere  brutal  violence — murder  and  robbery  of  the  indi- 
vidual, the  waging  of  war  on  a  tribe  or  people.  But  as 
the  forms  of  common  life  become  more  various  and 
complicated,  and  the  structure  of  society  is  established 
and  maintained  by  recognized  rules  and  binding  laws, 


MAN  AND  NATURE  153 

you  no  longer  have  the  strong  and  courageous  individual 
looking  upon  his  neighbour  simply  as  his  prey,  and  using 
him  and  his  goods  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  needs. 
Then  there  arises  "  the  will  to  power,"  trumpeted 
abroad  nowadays  as  a  new  philosophical  discovery,  but 
really  only  the  old  parasitism,  the  old  perversion  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  adapted  to  the  circum- 
stances of  civilized  life  under  legal  forms. 

The  will  to  power  is  a  secondary,  not  an  original 
instinct.  It  does  not  appear  in  a  state  of  nature.  There 
the  individual  does  not  strive  to  rise  above  his  fellows, 
or  to  mix  with  them  from  motives  of  pride,  vanity,  or 
ambition.  Individuals  of  the  same  genus  do  not  fight 
except  about  women — either  because  there  are  not 
women  enough,  or  because  in  one  place  many  men  are 
found  wooing  the  same  woman.  Then  the  strongest 
and  bravest  man  drives  his  rivals  from  the  field,  and 
keeps  the  woman  for  himself ;  she  apparently,  as  a  rule, 
shows  no  particular  preference,  and  yields  without  re- 
sistance to  the  conqueror.  Out  of  the  breeding  season 
no  animal  strives  for  power.  Man  alone  displays  that 
striving,  and  parasitism  is  its  object.  His  aim  in  seek- 
ing for  power  is  the  exploitation  of  the  strength  and 
capacity  of  other  men.  He  need  not  necessarily  be 
conscious  of  this.  During  the  struggle  for  power  he 
may  believe  that  he  seeks  it  for  its  own  sake.  The  in- 
toxication of  power,  the  sense  of  pleasure  aroused  by 
its  possession,  do  not  necessarily  include  any  recognition 
that  it  only  serves,  in  the  last  resort,  to  save  him  from 
the  struggle  with  inhospitable  nature,  and  maintain  his 
existence  by  means  of  the  efforts  of  others.  Such  un- 
consciousness of  the  real  object  of  effort  is  a  psycholog- 


154     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ical  fact  frequently  observed.  The  vanity  which  strives 
to  please,  to  make  an  impression,  or  to  rouse  envy ;  the 
ambition  which  sets  before  itself  the  higher  aim  of  rising 
above  the  others,  compelling  them  to  recognize  a  superi- 
ority, and  determining  the  thoughts,  behaviour,  and 
actions  of  thousands  of  millions  of  persons  by  its  single 
will,  while  it  is  yet  generally  satisfied  with  a  fame  which 
is  but  the  vain  reflection  or  phantom  of  real  power  over 
men — both  of  these  are  but  distorted  forms  of  the  will 
to  power,  which  in  its  turn  is,  as  I  have  shown,  only 
the  will  to  parasitism. 

The  unfavourable  conditions  under  which  man  is  con- 
demned to  carry  on  his  existence  upon  earth  have  thus 
transformed  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  common 
to  all  living  things,  into  the  tendency  to  parasitism, 
peculiar  to  himself  alone.  As  long  as  he  was  the  free 
guest  of  nature  he  would  never  have  troubled  to  try  to 
please  Eve  or  anyone  else;  he  would  have  felt  no  am- 
bition, no  striving  after  power.  But  when  his  free  food 
ceased,  observation  showed  him  that  his  best  and  easiest 
plan  was  to  take  possession  of  the  implements,  traps, 
hunting  and  huts  of  his  weaker  fellows,  and  thus  win 
by  one  brief  effort  all  that  the  others  had  obtained  by 
long  and  toilsome  diligence.  His-  original  battle  in- 
stinct, naturally  aroused  only  by  desire  for  a  particular 
woman  already  sought  by  many  wooers,  was  diverted 
from  its  first  object,  and  developed  in  another  direction. 
It  was  soon  aroused  by  any  and  every  desirable  or  useful 
object,  and  so  whatever  could  satisfy  any  human  need 
aroused  mutual  struggles,  of  which  woman  was  origi- 
nally the  sole  cause  and  prize.  Although  the  battle 
instinct  is  no  longer  immediately  connected  with  and 


MAN  AND  NATURE  155 

dependent  on  the  sex  instinct,  it  is  to  this  day  decidedly 
coloured  by  it.  Psychological  investigation,  if  it  go 
deep  enough,  will  discover  the  battle  instinct  to  be 
rooted  in  sex.  The  erotic  strain  visible  in  certain  as- 
pects of  the  passionate  lust  of  battle  and  the  delight 
in  victory  is  undeniable.  Thus  ambition,  vanity,  the 
will  to  power,  all  the  impulses  and  efforts  that  are  either 
admitted  or  felt  to  be  parasitic,  instead  of  being  new 
instincts,  are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  merely  the  primitive 
desire  of  woman  directed  to  a  new  end.  It  was  from 
this  that  the  battle  instinct  arose  in  man.  Its  object, 
instead  of  the  winning  of  a  woman,  is  now  the  subjuga- 
tion of  and  domination  over  others,  and  the  exploitation 
of  the  fruits  of  their  labour,  but  the  unconscious  con- 
nection with  the  sex  instinct  remains.  In  the  intoxica- 
tion of  victory  it  is  always  present,  however  obscure. 
Triumph  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  imagination  of  the 
ambitious  conqueror  will  hardly  omit  some  faintly  in- 
dicated female  forms. 

Ancient  poets  like  Ovid,  and  dogmatic  sociologists  of 
the  subjective  type  of  J.  J.  Rousseau,  who  describe  a 
golden  age  in  the  past,  endow  primitive  man  with  all  the 
virtues.  But  their  exaggerated  descriptions  have  little 
relation  to  actuality.  It  is  more  rational  to  assume  that 
primitive  man  was  neither  good  nor  evil.  There  was 
no  room  for  such  moral  conceptions  as  virtue  and  vice, 
or  any  moral  judgments  of  human  action,  so  long  as  all 
man's  needs  were  supplied  by  nature.  He  was  selfish 
with  the  innocent  selfishness  of  the  animal.  His  only 
care  was  to  protect  himself  against  the  larger  beasts  of 
prey.  His  only  bond  of  union  with  his  fellows  was  the 
habit  of  playing  and  possibly  of  hunting  together.     His 


156      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

relations  to  his  fellows  did  not  alter  until  nature  declared 
war  upon  him.  Then,  to  accommodate  himself  to  the 
new  and  toilsome  way  of  life,  he  developed  parasitism. 
"  Man  became  a  wolf  to  man  " ;  the  weak  learned  to 
fear  his  brother,  the  strong  to  prey  upon  him.  He 
paled  and  cringed  before  one  who  used  violence  against 
him,  and  felt  drawn  to  one  who  left  him  alone.  Good 
he  called  the  one  who  did  nothing  against  him,  evil 
him  who  had  designs  on  his  life,  goods,  or  strength. 

Thus  the  conceptions  good  and  evil  originally  denoted 
the  non-parasitic  and  parasitic  respectively.  Morality 
arose  from  the  unnatural  conditions  of  human  existence, 
an  inevitable  result  of  the  prison  in  which  Homunculus 
is  enclosed.  Morality  would  not  have  been  needed  or 
acquired  in  the  condition  of  delightful  freedom  enjoyed 
by  the  guests  of  the  mythical  paradise.  Before  men 
could  conceive  of  actions  as  being  good  or  evil,  they 
must  have  suffered  from  the  selfishness  of  their  fellows, 
and  felt  the  need  of  friendly  succour.  Only  the  weak 
have  suffered  and  called  for  help;  to  them  the  origin 
of  morality  is  due.  The  parasite  could  not  possibly 
feel  that  there  was  anything  reprehensible  in  his  forcible 
exploitation  of  his  fellows.  That  was  left  for  the  ex- 
ploited. A  moral  judgment  of  good  and  evil  was,  in 
its  origin,  a  confession  of  weakness,  a  symbolic  rejec- 
tion by  the  spirit  of  the  violence  which  the  body  was 
not  strong  enough  to  resist. 

Morality  has  developed,  widened,  and  deepened.  It 
has  risen  to  a  degree  of  subtlety  and  grandeur  that 
primitive  man  could  not  have  understood.  Oblivious 
of  its  origin,  it  no  longer  remembers  that  it  once  ex- 
pressed the  terror  of  the  hunted  before  the  pursuer,  the 


MAN  AND  NATURE  157 

impotent  hatred  of  the  vanquished  for  the  conqueror. 
Out  of  his  own  experience  man  learned  to  understand 
suffering,  and  to  hate  and  condemn  those  who  caused 
pain  to  others.  In  time  this  generalization  mastered 
the  thought  of  the  strong,  for  whom  it  had  no  applica- 
tion. Thus  the  framework  was  created  into  which 
there  fitted  all  the  further  ramifications  of  morality — 
love  of  one's  neighbour,  self-control,  and  regard  for 
human  personality. 

Such  is  the  progress  of  human  development  as  it 
presents  itself  to  the  unprejudiced  and  undogmatic 
observer.  Towards  the  end  of  the  tertiary  or  the  be- 
ginning of  the  quaternary  period  the  earth  was  inhab- 
ited by  an  animal  species,  distinguished  from  all  hitherto 
existing  living  forms  by  the  relatively  great  weight  of 
its  brain.  At  a  given  movement  the  climate  of  the  earth 
altered.  Nature  deprived  the  favoured  species  of  the 
very  conditions  of  its  existence.  The  species,  which 
was  destined  in  the  course  of  its  development  to  become 
mankind  as  it  is,  joined  battle  with  the  hostile  world, 
and  emerged  victorious,  thanks  to  its  capacity  for  artifi- 
cial attention,  observation,  and  correct  inference.  But 
the  individuals  of  which  it  was  composed  were  unequal; 
there  were  among  them  strong  and  weak,  clever  and 
stupid.  The  better  equipped  soon  saw  that  it  was 
easier  for  them  to  exploit  the  less  well  endowed  than 
to  struggle  with  nature  in  their  own  persons.  Para- 
sitism arose,  and  regulated  relations  within  the  species. 
The  exploited  then  created  the  notion  of  morality,  as  a 
protection  against  the  parasitism  already  in  operation 
which  threatened  them  all.  Between  parasitism  and 
morality  there  is  an  eternal  warfare.     Small  successes 


158      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

are  won,  now  by  one  side,  now  by  the  other.  It  is  by 
the  action  of  these  two  mighty  forces,  the  tendency  to 
exploitation  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the  angel 
of  morality  with  the  flaming  sword,  putting  his  violent 
deeds  to  shame,  that  the  external  destinies  of  mankind 
are  controlled. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

It  would  be  of  the  deepest  interest  to  know  how  the 
individuals  composing  the  human  species,  who  must 
certainly  have  originally  been  completely  free  and  inde- 
pendent, came  to  sacrifice  their  freedom,  and  to  form 
fribes,  peoples,  and  states  on  a  basis  of  mutual  depend- 
ence. History  has  no  information  to  give  us.  It  did 
not  arise  until  men  had  long  ago  been  massed  into  fixed 
political  bodies,  and  the  individual  of  the  original  type, 
one  subject  to  no  external  discipline,  an  anarchist  in  the 
root-sense  of  the  word,  had  disappeared.  The  fact  that 
there  are  no  primitive  records  of  a  time  before  this 
ordering  into  regular  bodies  took  place,  not  even  any 
mythical  recollection  of  it,  has  persuaded  many  that 
mankind,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  never  did  consist  of  dis- 
connected units;  that  it  was  at  its  first  appearance  upon 
earth  grouped  in  hordes;  that  the  natural  condition  of 
its  existence  was  a  congregation  of  the  larger  units. 
It  was  hoped  that  this  fundamental  sociological  question 
would  be  elucidated  by  observation  of  savages;  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  method  is  inadequate.  Nowadays, 
and  for  a  long  time  past,  real  savages  have  ceased  to 
exist.  No  race  on  earth  lives  completely  apart,  without 
any  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  Such  an  isolation 
does  not  exist  even  on  the  little  islands  of  Micronesia; 

159" 


160     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

even  there  some  mutual  intercourse  exists.  Men  might 
have  lived,  remote  from  the  world,  on  an  isolated  island 
in  mid-ocean,  far  removed  from  any  other  island  or 
from  the  mainland,  but  when  such  islands  as  Tristan 
da  Cunha,  Ascension,  or  St.  Helena  were  discovered  by 
Europeans  in  the  course  of  the  last  centuries  they  were 
uninhabited.  And  even  savage  tribes  do  come  in  con- 
tact with  one  another,  if  only  on  their  outposts,  the 
boundaries  of  their  territories.  Although  the  encounter 
be  hostile,  mutual  knowledge  accrues,  and  the  horizon 
of  each  is  widened.  In  the  course  of  long  periods  of 
time  a  kind  of  acquaintance  with  the  conditions  of  re- 
mote lands  spreads  from  race  to  race.  Dim  as  this 
knowledge  may  be,  subject  to  strange  and  mistaken 
interpretations,  it  does  gradually  carry  some  faint  re- 
flection of  the  light  that  shines  in  civilized  lands  to 
savages  that  appear  exceedingly  lonely  and  remote  from 
all  intercourse  with  the  world.  Ideas,  institutions,  dis- 
coveries, and  customs,  are  conveyed  with  a  slow,  yet 
irresistible,  progress  from  the  spot  where  they  arise 
all  over  the  world.  Every  nation  or  race  appropriates 
what  the  stage  of  mental  development  it  has  reached 
enables  it  to  retain.  Thus  the  influence  extended  to 
all  is  felt,  whether  deeply  or  superficially,  by  all.  For 
thousands  of  years  no  section  of  humanity  can  have  been 
entirely  without  cognizance  of  the  formation  of  States 
and  people  going  on  in  other  lands,  and  the  imitative 
impulse  common  to  the  race  has  certainly  assisted  the 
spread  of  organized  forms  of  common  life.  That  sav- 
ages show  a  social  disposition,  and  tend  to  live  in  some 
sort  of  society  or  state,  is  a  matter  of  observation,  and 
proves,  not  that  such  social  crystallizations  are  a  primary 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  161 

characteristic  of  the  species,  but  that  no  section  of 
mankind  can  wholly  escape  the  effect  of  the  example  of 
others. 

It  is  open  to  question  whether  historians  and  sociolo- 
gists were  on  the  right  track  in  endeavouring  to  under- 
stand the  remote  past  of  humanity,  and  the  origins  of  its 
civilization  from  an  examination  of  the  views,  habits, 
and  customs  of  savages.  In  the  first  place,  the  name 
"  natural  "  peoples,  used  to  justify  this  method,  is  really 
not  justifiable  at  all.  All  the  peoples  of  the  earth  have 
long  ago  ceased  to  live  under  their  primitive  constitu- 
tion, and  the  condition  of  all  of  them,  far  from  afford- 
ing any  true  picture  of  the  primitive  status  of  the  race, 
represents  a  stage  in  civilization  that,  however  low  it  be 
esteemed,  is  the  outcome  of  many  thousand  years  of 
creative  and  imitative  effort.  Secondly,  conclusions 
drawn  from  the  conditions  of  savages  cannot  be  valid 
for  humanity  as  a  whole,  since  savages  are  the  least 
gifted  and  most  backward  portion  of  the  species,  and 
their  intellectual  life  throughout  centuries  has  been  quite 
different,  and  on  a  much  lower  plan,  from  that  of  the 
more  highly  endowed  races.  Of  course,  there  was  a 
time  when  there  was  little  difference  between  the  remote 
ancestors  of  the  Germans,  Englishmen,  and  Frenchmen 
of  to-day  and  those  of  the  Weddas,  Nyam-Nyam,  or 
New  Guinea  races.  But  they  must  have  far  surpassed 
their  coloured  fellows  in  brain,  invention,  and  the  thirst 
for  knowledge.  They  replied  to  the  compulsion  of 
nature  by  building  up  the  whole  fabric  of  civilization 
as  it  is  to-day.  The  coloured  races,  on  the  other  hand, 
remained  unintelligent  and  brutish,  even  in  those  locali- 
ties where  they  were  subjected  to  the  same  climatic 


162      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

disadvantages  as  the  whites — e.g.,  North  America, 
Northern  Asia,  and  Patagonia — and  were  equally  com- 
pelled to  fight  against  the  hostility  of  nature.  Even  in 
primitive  times  the  world  must  have  presented  quite  a 
different  picture  to  the  white  man  and  to  the  coloured. 
The  thought  of  a  black  Australian,  a  negro  from  the 
Congo,  or  an  Indian  from  Gran  Chaco  cannot  run  on 
parallel  lines  with  that  of  a  primitive  German  or 
Chaldee.  To  try  to  understand  the  intellectual  prog- 
ress of  civilized  man  from  the  study  of  the  savage  is 
like  trying  to  grasp  the  feelings,  thoughts,  knowledge, 
and  action  of  a  people  from  a  study  of  its  children  and 
idiots.  It  should  be  expressly  stated  that  there  are 
to-day  neither  white  nor  yellow  savages.  Between  the 
white  and  yellow  races,  indeed,  there  is  little  difference. 
They  probably  either  sprang  from  one  primitive  stock 
or  have  been  very  considerably  intermingled.  This 
seems  to  be  proved  by  the  fact,  among  others,  that  about 
three  per  cent,  of  white  children  bear  near  the  coccyx 
the  blue  mark  that  distinguishes  the  Mongolian  race, 
while  a  Mongoloid  physiognomy,  that  no  doubt  repre- 
sents a  throw-back,  is  very  common  among  degenerate 
whites.  When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  savages  or  of 
natural  peoples,  we  can  at  the  present  day  include  only 
blacks  and  reds.  From  them  no  valid  conclusion  can 
be  drawn  as  to  the  intellectual  capacity  of  mankind  as  a 
whole.  Maoris  may  be  prominent  members  of  the 
New  Zealand  Parliament;  Redskins  may  be  successful  in 
law,  journalism,  and  business  in  North  America. 
Negroes  in  the  United  States  and  Haiti  may  have 
acquired  a  scientific  education,  and  occupied  themselves 
with  music  and  poetry.     This  only  proves   that  the 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  163 

imitative  faculty  is  a  universal  human  attribute,  in  which 
bl?ck  and  red  men  are  not  deficient.  All  the  instances 
adduced  to  prove  that  there  is  no  difference  in  the 
intellectual  capacity  of  the  chief  races  are  instances  of 
more  or  less  happy  imitation.  Creative  activities,  dis- 
coveries, or  inventions  have  not  as  yet  been  credited  to 
members  of  the  black  or  red  race.  But  the  civilization 
which  the  white  man  has  built  up  is  no  mere  imitative 
game,  however  clever;  it  is  a  connected  body  of  creative 
activities. 

No.  Observation  of  so-called  savages  can  teach  us 
nothing  of  the  being,  ways,  and  primitive  instincts  of 
those  men  from  which  the  highest  type  was  to 
develop. 

A  different  method,  which  promises  more  certain 
knowledge,  is  the  careful  investigation  of  those  innate, 
involuntary  movements  of  the  human  soul,  which  per- 
sist in  spite  of  education  or  culture.  This  method  rests 
on  the  assumption  that  in  every  species,  the  human  in- 
cluded, there  are  certain  fundamental  instincts  that  are 
as  indestructible  as  its  anatomical  form,  and  as  little 
subject  to  transmogrification.  I  know  that  education 
can  profoundly  affect  even  what  seems  a  fundamental 
instinct,  as  in  the  case  of  the  cats  of  Ruhla,  which  no 
longer  behave  towards  birds  as  beasts  of  prey.  In  such 
a  case,  however,  it  can  be  proved  that  the  fundamental 
character,  though  overlaid,  is  not  destroyed,  and  can  be 
roused  again  by  any  influence  strong  enough  to  sweep 
away  the  overlay.  Let  us  keep  to  our  instance.  If  one 
were  to  shut  up  a  cat  of  Ruhla  and  a  bird  in  a  cage 
together,  having  provided  the  bird  with  plenty  of  seed 
but  left  the  cat  hungry,  the  moment  would  certainly 


164     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

come  when  the  cat  would  forget  all  its  training  and 
devour  the  bird,  without  delaying  an  instant  to  consider 
the  pious  duty  of  feeding  on  seed.  Therefore,  if  our 
observation  were  protracted  enough,  attentive  enough, 
and  properly  directed,  we  should  see  the  wild  hunter 
of  birds  through  the  changes  that  education  had  brought 
upon  the  cat.  And  such  is  doubtless  the  case  with  all 
fundamental  instincts,  including  those  possessed  by  man. 
In  his  natural  state  he  gave  way  to  them  without  any 
attempt  at  resistance.  But  when  his  existence  became 
artificial,  these  instincts  ceased  to  have  full  sway  over 
him.  The  instinct  of  preservation,  the  mightiest  of 
them  all,  overcame  the  others,  or  turned  them  aside 
from  their  natural  aim.  Many  human  instincts  served 
as  weapons  in  the  fight  with  the  surrounding  world,  and 
determined  the  form  of  the  civilization  that  man  cre- 
ated to  assist  him  in  the  fight;  others  had  to  go  under, 
and  did  not  survive.  They  did  not,  therefore,  dis- 
appear. They  do  persist,  but  deep  down,  chained  in 
a  dark  prison,  seldom  lit  by  the  uncertain  light  of 
consciousness,  in  which  they  mostly  remain  strongly 
guarded  a  whole  life  long.  Yet  sometimes  they  break 
loose,  and  the  man  who  has  thus  failed  to  guard  his 
prisoners  passes  for  an  eccentric,  a  criminal,  a  revolu- 
tionary— in  a  word,  an  abnormal,  anti-social  creature. 
It  is  these  suppressed  instincts  that  we  have  to  discover. 
The  task  is  a  thorny  one.  One  must  abandon  the 
ordinary  point  of  view — morality — since  morality  is  the 
product  of  civilization,  and  these  primitive  tendencies 
are  prior  to  civilization,  and  therefore  to  morality. 
Moreover,  one  must  free  oneself  from  all  the  prejudices 
bred  in  us  by  thousands  of  years  of  social  tradition. 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  165 

The  task  is  to  investigate  nature,  to  establish  facts,  not  to 
pass  judgment;  and  since  the  only  method  that  holds 
out  any  prospect  of  success  is  that  of  introspection — 
searching  examination  of  the  inner  consciousness — the 
observer  must  have  no  presuppositions,  he  must  not 
pose  for  a  moment :  he  must  regard  himself  with  com- 
plete objectivity  as  a  physical  apparatus,  and  dismiss 
wholly  from  his  mind  all  he  may  have  heard  or  read 
as  to  the  nature  of  man  and  the  fundamental  traits  of 
his  character,  and  all  the  opinions  that  he  himself,  as  a 
moral  and  civilized  being,  may  hold  as  to  the  praise  or 
blame-worthiness  of  individual  tendencies.  Only  so  can 
He  hope  that,  hidden  beneath  the  superstructure  raised 
by  civilization,  he  may  discover  the  strange  ruin  that  he 
perhaps  never  expected  to  find  there.  The  ruin  may 
rouse  disgust  and  uneasiness  within  him,  he  would  may 
be  gladly  hide  it  from  his  own  knowledge.  He  has, 
however,  to  recognize  in  it  the  primitive  history  of  his 
existence.  For  a  knowledge  of  the  past  of  the  species 
it  is  as  important  carefully  to  trace  out  the  instincts  that, 
in  the  healthy  man,  are  ambiguous,  tortuous,  and  over- 
laid as  it  is  to  investigate  those  bodily  dispositions  and 
organs  that  are  now  useless  and  rudimentary.  These 
instincts  are  survivals,  like  the  loop  of  the  branchia  in 
the  neck  of  the  embryo  or  the  vermiform  appendix. 
They  witness  to  intellectual  phylogeny.  The  question 
is  how  to  interpret  them  correctly.  For  that  one  may 
have  recourse,  as  in  the  case  of  anatomical  atavism,  to 
pathology  and  the  comparison  with  related  animal 
species.  The  morbid  development  of  certain  instincts 
in  abnormal  men  may  enable  us  to  understand  the  bare 
indications  of  such  tendencies  in  normal  men.     Certain 


166      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

conclusions  as  to  the  primitive  nature  of  man  may  be 
drawn  from  careful  observation  of  the  ways  and  habits 
of  the  apes,  who  are  nearer  to  us  in  the  scale,  so  long  as 
it  is  supplemented  by  a  constant  comparison  with  human 
traits. 

Such  a  method  of  observing  mankind  fills  one  with 
grave  distrust  of  the  old  statement  of  Aristotle,  that 
man  is  ttoXitikov  £o>ov.  "  Man  is  a  political  animal," 
said  the  Stagyrite,  "  born  for  association  with  other  men; 
he  cannot  attain  either  virtue  or  happiness  as  an  iso- 
lated individual."  Certainly  not  virtue,  for  Aristotle's 
virtue  is  a  social  good,  and  can,  of  course,  have  no 
value  outside  of  society.  But  what  about  happiness? 
Of  that  Aristotle  knows  nothing,  for  he  has  in  his  eye 
only  the  man  he  knows,  the  child  of  civilization,  who 
has  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  society  and  the  State, 
whose  habits  all  depend  on  his  relation  to  his  fellow- 
men,  without  whom  he  could  not  imagine  existence. 
But  what  Aristotle  has  not  proved  is  that  man  is  by 
nature  what  he  appears  when  living  with  others.  On 
the  contrary,  everything  points  to  the  fact  that  man's 
natural  state,  before  he  was  compelled  to  support  life 
by  artificial  means,  was  not  gregarious;  he  did  not  live 
in  herds,  but  as  a  solitary  being.  The  solitary  naturally 
strove  to  form  one  of  a  pair,  since  only  then  did  he 
attain  the  individuality  which  satisfied  all  his  organic 
possibilities,  and  rendered  him,  in  the  biological  sense, 
complete.  The  apes,  our  nearest  relations,  do  not  natu- 
rally go  in  herds.  The  orang-outang,  the  gorilla,  and 
the  chimpanzee  live  in  families,  without  any  attempt  at 
intercourse  with  neighbours,  in  this  respect  resembling 
the  large  beasts  of  prey,  who  hunt  alone,  and  only  form 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  167 

pairs  in  the  breeding  season.  Only  the  lower  apes  go 
in  troops.  F.  H.  Giddings  brings  forward  no  proof  in 
support  of  his  purely  dogmatic  assertion  that  man's 
animal  ancestors  were  "  social."  In  Giddings'  sense 
present-day  man  is  not  social,  as  has  been  shown ;  Ward 
is  undoubtedly  on  firmer  ground  in  his  denial  of  the 
existence  of  any  "  social  feelings  "  at  all. 

The  old  way  of  talking  of  the  "political  animal" 
and  the  "  gregarious  animal  "  is,  moreover,  discredited 
by  the  example  of  the  ape.  Attentive  observation  of 
basic  human  instincts  leads  to  the  same  result — namely, 
that  man  is  not  a  social,  but  a  solitary  animal.  How 
closely  in  an  organized  society  a  man  seems  bound  to  his 
fellows !  How  inextricably  are  their  interests  inter- 
twined !  What  a  tremendously  powerful  impulse  seems 
to  draw  each  man  to  the  companionship  of  his  kind! 
It  fills  the  reception-rooms  in  palaces — this  instinct — 
the  public-houses  and  the  tea-rooms,  the  bars  frequented 
by  the  proletariate,  and  the  buffets  of  the  fashionable 
hotels,  the  theatres  and  the  music-halls.  It  creates  clubs 
and  unions.  It  is  one  of  the  forces  that  draw  people 
from  the  villages  into  the  big  towns.  It  is  the  basis  of 
Society,  with  a  big  "  S."  It  underlies  the  countless 
forms  of  daily  intercourse  of  people  of  the  same  class 
and  similar  tastes.  And  yet  it  is  all  external,  super- 
ficial; underneath  it  all,  beneath  the  exclusive  visiting- 
list  of  the  smart  lady,  behind  all  those  receptions,  din- 
ners, balls,  At  Homes,  aesthetic  tea-parties,  private 
banquet-halls  and  reserved  tables  at  restaurants,  there 
lurks,  in  the  depths  of  the  consciousness,  a  secret  emo- 
tion that  contradicts  it  all.  Everyone  who  has  passed 
the  lowest  stage  of  intellectual  development  shrouds 


168     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  more  intimate  aspects  of  his  life  from  the  view  of 
others.  Whether  the  conditions  of  his  existence  be 
simple  or  highly  complicated,  he  conceals  them,  to  the 
best  of  his  ability,  from  the  curiosity  of  his  neighbours. 
Even  at  school,  in  the  canteen,  on  board  ship,  or  in 
the  cloister,  where  a  man  cannot  shut  himself  away, 
where  every  movement  is  observed,  where  the  individual 
is  most  completely  absorbed  into  the  community,  even 
there  every  man  guards  a  secret  that  he  shares  with 
none.  One  often  hears  it  said:  "The  life  of  this  or 
that  man  lies  like  an  open  book  before  the  eyes  of  all." 
This  statement  must  never  be  taken  literally.  There 
are  always  stray  pages  that  cannot  be  turned.  What 
a  man  hides  from  the  world  is  not  necessarily  anything 
bad,  anything  of  which  he  need  be  ashamed.  It  is 
only  that  he  will  never  reveal  himself  fully,  never 
expose  himself  to  view  on  every  side,  because  of  some- 
thing within  him  that  shrinks  from  such  complete  pub- 
licity. In  the  depths  of  every  soul  there  is  a  shyness, 
a  shamefacedness,  that  represents  a  still,  but  enduring, 
protest  against  social  life — life  in  the  herd.  Every 
soul  is  a  world  of  its  own,  and  maintains  its  isolation 
with  desperate  earnestness.  The  gates  open  but  a  nar- 
row chink.  The  outsider  never  gets  farther  than  the 
anteroom.  The  inner  chambers  remain  for  ever  closed 
to  him.  Countless  persons  have  recorded  their  own 
lives.  Is  anyone  so  uncritical  as  to  believe  that  they 
have  been  quite  honest?  Even  in  the  autobiographies 
that  are  by  way  of  being  full  confessions,  such  as  the 
twelve  books  of  the  "  Confessions  "  of  St.  Augustine, 
or  the  "  Confessions  "  of  J.  J.  Rousseau,  the  author  is 
almost  always  unconsciously,  and  frequently  even  con- 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  169 

sciously,  posing.  Even  here  an  impenetrable  dusk 
shrouds  the  real  bases  of  personality. 

Everyone's  first  impulse  on  meeting  an  unknown 
fellow-creature  is  shyness,  caution,  mistrust,  even  en- 
mity. Habit  dulls  these  feelings.  They  retreat  across 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  but  never  wholly  dis- 
appear. This  is  not  contradicted  by  the  fact  that  men 
seek  one  another  out,  find  pleasure  in  one  another's 
society,  and  try  to  attract  others  to  themselves.  Here 
all  sorts  of  secondary  interests  come  into  play — the 
vanity  that  loves  to  shine  before  others,  ambition  that 
would  make  use  of  them,  self-aggrandisement  that  aims 
at  exploiting  them.  The  thousand  complexities  of  an 
artificial,  civilized  existence  bind  every  individual  mem- 
ber of  a  community  with  threads  that  are  strong  for  all 
their  fineness,  and  leave  him  no  longer  free  to  follow 
his  impulses.  The  mutual  cordialities  of  social  life  are 
cut  flowers;  their  stalks  are  stuck  in  the  earth,  but  they 
have  no  roots  there.  Relations  between  men  are  not 
the  outcome  of  a  primitive  impulse,  but  of  a  late  de- 
veloped utilitarianism.  Were  man  really  a  gregarious 
animal,  he  would  feel  himself  irresistibly  drawn  to  his 
fellows;  his  relations  to  them  would  know  no  reserve; 
he  would  never  withdraw  into  himself,  and  try  to 
keep  his  inner  self  curtained  away,  nor  ever  feel  an 
irresistible  need  for  solitude  and  a  retreat  within 
himself. 

Against  the  theory  that  man,  like  the  ape,  is  not 
naturally  a  social,  but  a  solitary,  being  it  may  be  urged 
that  his  undeniable  tendency  to  feel  distrust  and  shyness 
of  his  fellows  is  a  late,  and  not  a  primitive  instinct, 
only  developed  when  he  wasv  compelled  to  live  under 


170     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

artificial  conditions,  and  consequently  to  become  para- 
sitic. 

Since  from  that  time  on  man  inevitably  saw  in  every- 
one, until  the  contrary  was  proved,  a  parasite  and 
exploiter — that  is,  an  enemy — his  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation put  him  on  his  guard  against  his  fellows,  and 
taught  him  to  fear  and  avoid  them.  As  civilization 
developed  parasitism  concealed  itself  under  more  and 
more  subtle  and  fair-seeming  forms.  The  majority, 
becoming  used  to  the  exploitation  to  which  their  inferi- 
ority in  brain  and  strength  condemned  them,  no  longer 
felt  their  existence  threatened  by  it.  The  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  thus  lulled  to  sleep,  ceased  to  put  men  on 
their  guard  against  their  fellows,  and  to  warn  them 
to  keep  them  at  as  great  distance  as  possible.  Thus  the 
tendency  to  isolation  and  solitude  stepped  farther  and 
farther  back  over  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  and  is 
now  in  most  men  but  a  wretched  survival,  only  dis- 
coverable after  careful  search. 

This  objection  cannot  be  proved  to  be  unfounded. 
It  is,  however,  contradicted  by  the  unalterable  inner 
solitude  that  is  most  complete  precisely  in  the  strongest 
types  of  the  species,  and  therefore  cannot  possibly  have 
been  acquired  simply  as  a  protection  or  defence  against 
attack. 

The  avoidance  of  mankind  and  flight  from  the  world 
of  many  hermits,  some  saints,  and  certain  sufferers  from 
melancholia  may  be  regarded  as  a  form  of  pathological 
atavism.  It  is  observed  that  primitive  instincts,  which 
in  a  state  of  health  are  suppressed  by  civilization,  break 
out  in  sickness.  In  the  same  way  murder  and  other 
cannibal  predilections  appear  in  criminal  degenerates. 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  171 

Similarly,  the  anti-social  feelings  that  appear  in  abnor- 
mal persons  represent,  in  all  probability,  a  reversion  to 
primitive  states,  not  a  new  phenomenon. 

Unbiassed  observation  leads,  then,  to  the  uncomfort- 
able conclusion  that  man  walks  in  fearsome  loneliness 
throughout  his  life.  Apart  from  love,  which  will  be 
treated  later,  he  never  comes  into  intimate  connection 
with  people  in  general,  except  when  he  abandons  himself 
to  some  big  intellectual  current,  some  view,  some 
aesthetic  movement,  some  political  or  religious  party. 
There  he  mixes  with  those  who  share  his  views,  without 
ever  getting  to  know  them  personally  or  realizing  their 
individual  traits.  On  the  other  hand,  whenever  he  does 
get  to  know  them,  natural  incompatibility  at  once  proves 
stronger  than  the  bond  of  common  opinions,  as  is  proved 
by  the  friction  and  the  bitter  animosities  so  frequent 
among  leaders  of  any  party,  sect,  or  school,  whether 
philosophic,  literary,  or  artistic. 

Rauber x  thought  that  he  could  prove  Aristotle's 
assertion  of  man's  gregarious  nature  to  be  correct,  by 
collecting  and  critically  examining  all  possible  informa- 
tion about  the  instances  that  appear  from  time  to  time 
of  men  living  in  a  state  of  barbarism.  His  conclusion 
was  that,  since  persons  who  have  grown  up  far  from 
men,  in  the  woods  and  amidst  animals,  cannot  speak, 
and  have  hardly  anything  human  about  them,  therefore 
the  individual  can  never  be  regarded  as  a  man — society 
alone  makes  him  a  man.  So  long  as  Rauber  confines 
the  title  of  man  to  an  individual  who  speaks  correctly, 

1  Dr.  R.  Rauber,  "Homo  Sapiens  Ferus;  or,  The  Condition  of  the 
Savage,  and  its  Scientific,  Political,  and  Educational  Significance," 
Leipzig,  1885.  ,. 


172      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

has  passed  his  standards,  is  respectably  dressed,  and 
knows  how  to  behave  himself  properly,  he  is  perfectly 
right  in  refusing  it  to  the  wild  creatures  who  have  from 
time  to  time  been  found  in  the  woods  of  Russia  and 
South  Germany,  in  the  Pyrenees,  and  in  Belgium.  But 
there  is  no  scientific  justification  for  making  the  idea 
of  man  synonymous  with  that  of  a  model  citizen.  It 
should  no  more  surprise  Rauber  to  find  men  living 
in  barbarism  unable  to  speak  than  that  a  child  born  and 
brought  up  in  Germany,  and  surrounded  by  Germans, 
does  not  speak  French  or  English.  Language  is  not  an 
inborn,  but  an  acquired  faculty.  Wild  men  had  no 
opportunity  to  learn  it,  and  no  need,  since  it  is  merely 
the  means  of  carrying  on  those  relationships  with  other 
men  that  they  did  not  possess.  Rauber  maintains  that 
his  barbarians  were  not  only  unable  to  speak,  but  even 
to  think.  His  own  facts  contradict  him.  Barbarians 
distinguish  very  clearly  between  friend  and  foe;  they 
know  how  to  express  comfort  or  ill-humour;  they  ob- 
serve their  environment,  and  to  some  extent  adapt  them- 
selves to  it.  The  mere  fact  that  they  succeeded,  under 
the  most  unfavourable  circumstances,  in  supporting  life 
in  the  wilderness  proves  them  to  be  possessed  of  many 
faculties  wanting  in  many  a  civilized  man  who  speaks 
beautifully,  and  in  other  respects  comes  up  to  Rauber's 
ideal.  Moreover,  as  von  Schreber  correctly  observed, 
most,  if  not  all,  wild  men  did  not  lose  their  reason  in 
the  wilderness,  but  fled  thither  because  feeble-minded 
or  insane  from  their  birth.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Rauber's  dictum,  "  homo  sapiens  ferus,"  has  no  sig- 
nificance in  the  question  of  the  mode  of  life  of  primitive 
man.     No   one   denies   that,   in   the  present   state   of 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  173 

humanity,  an  individual  who  has  been  solitary  since  his 
childhood,  and  shut  off  from  the  society  of  his  kind, 
must,  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view,  be  far  behind 
those  who  have  grown  up  and  lived  in  a  community. 
To  do  so  would  be  to  deny  the  value  of  upbringing, 
instruction,  and  example.  Obviously,  a  single  being, 
even  were  he  a  supreme  genius,  could  not  in  the  course 
of  a  short  life  make  for  himself  the  inventions  and 
discoveries  that  represent  the  thousand  years  of  work 
of  the  whole  human  race,  and  are  transmitted  to  the 
educated  individual  in  a  compressed  and  abbreviated 
form,  at  school,  by  the  reading  of  books,  and  instruction 
in  the  use  of  his  faculties.  But  this  fragmentary  truth 
does  not  entitle  us  to  the  conclusion  that  men  have  been 
social  beings  since  they  began  to  be.  Beneath  the  great 
mass  of  outworn  ideas  are  certain  feelings  to  which  man 
has  held  fast,  and  they  are  solitary  feelings. 

For  thousands  of  years  men  have  gone  on  repeating 
with  lowered  voice,  and  eyes  piously  uplifted  and  brim- 
ming with  tears,  sentimentalities  that  they  take  to  be 
irrefutable,  unassailable  truths.  They  rave  of  friend- 
ship and  love  of  one's  neighbour — in  these  days  of 
sympathy  and  altruism — as  glorious  feelings  in  which 
only  quite  exceptional  monsters  are  deficient.  The  spec- 
tacle of  social  life,  however,  must  give  any  unprejudiced 
observer  pause,  and  cause  a  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of 
these  universally  esteemed  qualities  of  human  nature, 
for,  as  judged  by  their  actions,  men  appear  to  be  ani- 
mated, not  by  brotherly  love  and  friendship,  but  by 
selfishness  and  a  hard  indifference  to  others.  Therefore 
those  phrases  and  catch-words,  that  form  part  of  the 
fabric  of  conventional  morality,  must  be  tested  without 


174     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

any  reference  to  the  fact  that  they  pass  current  every- 
where, that  on  one  examines  and  everyone  praises 
them. 

Friendship  I  It  is  a  word  that  makes  the  heart  beat 
high.  Alas !  it  is  only  a  word.  Does  it  exist  ?  What 
is  it?  Cicero's  often-quoted  work  on  "Friendship" 
starts  from  the  Aristotelian  dictum,  reiterated  with  a 
certain  hesitation,  that  man  is  a  political  animal,  and 
therefore  disposed  by  nature  to  mutual  attachment.1 
He  gives  the  famous  definition  of  friendship:  "It  is 
indeed  nothing  less  than  the  most  complete  harmony  of 
all  things,  Divine  and  human,  with  good-will  and  affec- 
tion." 2  This  "  good-will  and  affection  "  is  smuggled 
in  with  truly  sophistic  skill,  for  it  is  that  precisely  which 
has  to  be  proved.  It  is  clear  that  complete  harmony 
in  all  things  is  pleasant.  Everyone  is  always  convinced 
that  he  is  right ;  when  he  finds  his  own  views  in  another, 
he  has  the  same  good  opinion  of  him  that  he  has  of 
himself.  But  what  about  good-will  and  affection?  In 
friendship  defined  as  harmony  the  other  really  has  no 
place;  he  is  merely  the  mirror  for  the  pleased  con- 
templation of  personal  vanity,  the  echo  which  gives 
back  the  agreeable  sound  of  a  man's  own  voice.  It 
is  self  that  is  sought,  self  that  is  loved,  self,  one's  own 
personality,  that  is  never  limited  or  restrained,  as  it 
must  be  by  real  "  caritas."     Daily  experience  proves 

1  M.  Tullius  Cicero,  "  De  Amicitia,"  v.:  "Sic  enim  mihi  perspicere 
videor,  ita  natos  esse  nos  ut  inter  omnes  esset  societas  quasdam."  It 
seems  to  him  "  that  we  are  so  constituted  that  a  certain  social  bond 
exists  between  us  all." 

*  Ibid.,  book  vi. :  "Est  autem  amicitia  mihi  aliud  nisi  omnium  divi- 
norum  humanarumque  rerum  cum  benevolentia  et  caritate  summa 
consensio." 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  175 

how  insecure  a  basis  harmony  affords  for  friendship. 
Let  but  some  new  question  arise,  upon  which  two 
hitherto  like-minded  friends  take  different  views,  and 
friendships  that  may  have  lasted  a  lifetime  are  rent 
asunder  in  a  moment,  or  even,  as  happened  a  thousand 
times  in  France  during  the  Dreyfus  case,  converted 
into  deadly  enmities.  One  seeks  in  vain  for  the  "  bene- 
volentia  et  caritas,"  supposed  to  have  been  an  ingredient 
in  the  friendship,  which  might  have  prevented  or  out- 
lived the  breach  had  it  really  existed,  and  exercised  a 
mutual  attraction.  If  friendship  means  only  a  com- 
mon point  of  view,  it  is  wholly  intellectual,  and  not  that 
instinctive  expression  that  alone  could  prove  man's  prim- 
itive social  nature.  Cicero  himself,  moreover,  sadly 
admits  that  "  throughout  the  centuries  three  or  four 
pairs  of  friends  can  be  named  "  answering  to  his  defi- 
nition, and  that  as  a  rule  men  only  form  friendships 
for  the  sake  of  protection  and  support — "  praesidii 
adjumentique  causa  " — not  from  "  benevolentia  et  cari- 
tas," and  "  love  their  friends  as  they  would  a  flock  out 
of  which  they  hope  to  make  a  profit."  1  A  feeling  as 
rare  as  Cicero  admits  this  to  be  cannot  be  a  natural 
instinct. 

From  antiquity  comes  the  naive  exclamation,  "  O 
friends,  there  are  no  friends !  "  and  the  saying  attributed 
to  Bias,  and  quoted  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  "  <f>t\eiv  dk 
tu.<rfj<rovera%" — "  One  should  love  in  the  expectation  of 

'Cicero,  "  De  Amicitia,"  book  xxi.:  "  Sed  plerique  .  .  .  araicos 
tanquam  pecudes  eos  potissimum  diligunt,  ex  quibus  sperant  se 
maximum  fructum  esse  capturos." 

L.  Dugas  has  exhaustively  treated  the  attitude  of  the  ancients 
towards  friendships  in  his  excellent  book,  "  L'Amitie  antique  d'apres 
les  mceurs  populaires  et  les  theories  des  philosophes,"  Paris,  1894. 


176      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

hating."  Can  there  be  a  more  horrible  denial  of  true 
attachment,  a  more  fearsome  warning  against  any 
simple,  unreflective  devotion  than  this  suggestion  that, 
in  the  very  instant  of  overflowing  tenderness,  one  should 
see  the  ugly  features  of  the  enemy?  There  was  little 
of  self-deception  in  the  cold,  keen  glance  with  which 
La  Rochefoucauld  acquired  his  bitter  knowledge  of 
mankind.  Many  of  his  sayings  show  how  small  was 
his  belief  in  the  genuine  genuineness  of  friendship: 
"  We  all  have  the  strength  to  bear  the  misfortunes  of 
others  ";  "  We  often  find  something  far  from  displeas- 
ing to  us  in  the  misfortunes  of  our  best  friends  ";  "  Our 
first  sensation  of  pleasure  in  the  good  fortune  of  our 
friends  does  not  arise  from  our  natural  goodness  or 
from  our  friendship:  it  is,  as  a  rule,  inspired  by  the 
selfishness  that  flatters  us  with  the  hope  of  being  lucky 
in  our  turn,  or  of  gaining  some  advantage  for  ourselves 
from  their  good  fortune." 

What  is  called  friendship  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a 
complex  of  various  emotional  and  intellectual  factors. 
The  superficial  relations  subsisting  between  persons 
belonging  to  the  same  profession  or  rank  in  society  may 
be  dismissed  as  not  worth  classification.  There  is  noth- 
ing spiritual  in  such  ties,  indiscriminately  formed  by 
interest,  habit,  vanity,  custom,  or  at  best  the  satisfaction 
caused  by  intellectual  affinity.  The  friendships  of  child- 
hood and  youth  are  much  more  deeply  rooted.  The 
comradeship  formed  in  these  years  is  usually  based  upon 
an  inclination  in  which  the  element  of  passion  can  always 
be  detected,  sometimes  in  a  subdued,  but  often  in  quite 
a  distinct  form.  Before  puberty  the  full  capacity  for 
love  exists,  though  the  consciousness  of  sex  has  not 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  177 

awakened  to  direct  it.  A  child,  a  young  creature, 
lavishes  on  its  companions  the  ardent  tenderness  that 
informs  its  love  later  on :  the  feeling  is  the  same,  though 
as  yet  unconscious,  undifferentiated.  It  is  love  that  ex- 
presses itself  in  such  childish  friendships,  love  as  yet 
unconscious  of  its  own  meaning  and  intention,  feeling, 
as  in  a  dream,  after  some  longed-for  object,  and  uncon- 
sciously catching  hold  of  something  else.1  Later,  when 
the  individual,  fully  developed,  realizes  what  he  seeks, 
his  youthful  friendships  change  their  tone  and  lose  their 
ardour.  Yet  throughout  life  there  rests  upon  them  a 
mysterious  glamour — the  glamour  with  which  every- 
one's imagination  illumines  his  own  youth.2  So  long 
as  they  retain  the  freshness  of  the  present  they  are  love, 
unconscious  of  its  aim;  in  the  past  they  become  part  of 
each  man's  youth,  and  share  in  the  soft  tenderness  of 
his  thoughts  of  it. 

Even  the  mature  adult  is  capable  of  a  friendship  that 
penetrates  the  inmost  fibres  of  his  emotional  life:  the 
friendship  of  fellow-soldiers,  of  Achilles  and  Patroclus. 
Men  who  have  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder,  who  have 

'  Schurtz  has  recognized,  in  his  book  on  "  Hordes,  Classes,  and 
Guilds,"  the  significance  of  a  common  life  in  the  years  of  adolescence 
in  the  development  of  the  community,  but  neglects  the  psycho-physical 
side  of  the  attractions  subsisting  between  boys  and  youths  which  are 
often  mysterious  to  themselves. 

*  Compare  Hermann  Lingg's  "  Friends "  (Schluszsteine,  Berlin, 
1878,  p.  4): 

"  In  the  happy  days  of  youth, 
Under  joy's  control, 

Thou  canst  choose  thy  friends  in  truth, 
Knit  them  to  thy  soul. 
Only  in  those  early  days 
Wilt  thou  make  the  friend  that  stays.  .  .  .** 


178      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

shared  danger  and  hardship,  the  terrors  of  death  and 
the  intoxication  of  victory,  are  indissolubly  knit  to- 
gether, so  long  as  they  live.  It  is  as  though  such  mo- 
ments of  extreme  tension  broke  down  the  barriers  that 
separate  each  individual  from  his  fellows  and  the  world 
around  him,  and  made  possible  a  fusion  and  mingling 
of  souls.  Since  our  conscious  thought  proceeds  by  anal- 
ogy, and  tends  to  transfer  the  feelings  accompanying 
certain  actions  to  others  whose  resemblance  to  them  is 
merely  symbolical,  it  often  happens  that  the  friendship 
peculiar  to  fellow-soldiers  is  found  among  those  who 
are  fighting  battles  where  no  lives  are  lost  and  no  blood 
shed — symbolic  battles  in  defence  of  some  conviction. 

Friendship  in  these  two  instances — the  unconscious 
love  of  youth  and  the  recollection  of  comradeship  in 
battle — is  a  genuine  feeling  resting  on  a  biological 
foundation.  In  all  others  it  is  a  convention,  and  only 
skin-deep.  This  is  even  more  true  of  philanthropy, 
generalized  friendship  for  mankind  as  a  whole.  It  has 
really  nothing  to  do  with  feeling.  It  is  an  idea,  a 
system,  a  method — what  you  will — but  not  a  living 
sentiment.  Philanthropy  is  only  touched  to  genuine 
emotion  when  the  abstract  notion  of  mankind  appears 
in  some  concrete  shape,  as  someone  who  is  personally 
attractive,  as  a  particular  widow,  orphan,  or  distressed 
man,  whose  sufferings  have  a  physiognomy  of  their 
own;  it  is  an  instinct  that  is  only  real  in  reference  to 
definite  individuals:  when  generalized,  all  form  and 
purpose  disappears.  Whatever  forms  of  philanthropic 
activity  one  likes  to  name — donations,  endowments, 
societies,  and  movements  of  every  sort,  from  Carnegie's 
millions  for  free  libraries  to  the  Red  Cross  Society  and 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  179 

the  Salvation  Army — one  will  find  vanity,  self-right- 
eousness, fancies,  fixed  ideas,  delusions,  religious,  po- 
litical, social,  or  merely  political  convictions  at  the  bot- 
tom of  them  all,  and  never  that  instinctive  sympathy 
which  must,  by  its  very  nature,  be  directed  to  a  clearly- 
defined  individual,  and  cannot  be  aroused  for  such 
vague,  undefined  generalities  as  make  no  appeal  to  the 
feelings.  Only  in  abnormal  persons,  whose  intellectual 
processes  are  permanently  tinged  with  feeling,  does  the 
love  of  humanity  exist  in  a  real  and  strongly  emotional 
form,  and  in  them  it  serves  to  give  an  intelligible  direc- 
tion to  their  overwrought  sensibility,  hovering  between 
tears  and  rapture;  to  the  longing  which  has  no  definite 
aim,  and  to  the  hysterical  excitement  whose  pathological 
ground  they  do  not  understand.  Sentimental  philan- 
thropy is  closely  akin  to  religious  mania,  and  both 
originate  in  a  morbid  mental  condition. 

Consciousness  tries  to  provide  a  content  such  as  reason 
can  sanction  for  an  emotionalism  that  operates  in  the 
vague.  The  form  of  this  content  varies,  according  to 
the  education,  upbringing,  and  intellectual  environment 
of  the  individual,  between  mystical  communion  with 
God  and  self-abnegating  worship  of  humanity.  This 
doubtless  is  the  explanation  of  the  love  of  mankind 
that  amounted  to  a  religion  with  St.  Simon  and  his 
disciples,  and  with  Auguste  Comte  and  the  Positivists. 
The  altruism  of  Spencer  and  the  Socialist  doctrine  of 
human  solidarity  are  the  logical  outcome  of  certain 
sociological  views :  the  ethical  completion  of  a  certain 
philosophy  of  the  relations  of  the  individual  to  society. 
For  sane  and  rational  minds,  such  views  are  entirely 
without  an  emotional  side  at  all,   or  possess  it  only 


180     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

in  so  far  as  such  social  and  ethical  convictions  are 
artificially  reinforced  by  the  suggestion  of  inherited 
religious  feelings. 

Only  the  novice  in  psychiatrical  and  psychological 
questions  will  see  anything  contradictory  in  the  fact  that 
spiritual  anomalies  will  rouse  anti-social  atavism  in  one 
case  and  unbounded  love  of  humanity  in  another.  The 
expert  knows  that  one  and  the  same  organic  disturbance 
will,  according  as  it  is  accompanied  by  depression  or 
excitement,  take  the  form  of  hatred  of  the  world  or 
philanthropy,  between  melancholia  and  mania,  or  alter- 
nate between  one  and  the  other. 

The  psychology  and  biology  of  friendship  and  altru- 
ism ought  to  be  studied  thoroughly,  provided  always 
that  sentimental  prejudice  is  avoided.  Here  it  is  only 
possible  to  refer  briefly  to  the  methods  and  results  of 
a  study  that  is  of  the  greatest  importance  for  a  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  and  an  understanding  of  indi- 
vidual and  social  life.  According  to  these  conclusions, 
neither  friendship  nor  philanthropy  is  a  primitive  in- 
stinct proving  man  to  be  naturally  a  social  being.  They 
are  views  and  convictions  acquired  late,  as  a  result  of 
an  artificial  civilization,  and  without  deep  roots  in  the 
life  of  feeling. 

One  feeling  there  is,  and  only  one — not  an  invention 
or  suggestion  of  the  intellect,  nor  the  mere  creation  of 
habit,  but  a  genuine  feeling — strong  enough  to  call  man 
out  of  his  selfish  isolation  and  command  his  relations  to 
others — the  sex  instinct.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  love 
originally,  and  often  has  nothing  to  do  with  it  now. 
Only  a  slow  process  of  development  has  ennobled  and 
elevated  it.     The  prehistoric  savage  and  the  present- 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  181 

day  brute  sees  in  woman  only  the  satisfaction  of  momen- 
tary desire.  When  it  is  satisfied,  she  is  indifferent,  even 
repulsive.  As  man's  consciousness  became  more  varied 
and  refined,  the  ideas  that  accompanied  his  sensual  im- 
pulses became  more  lofty.  Thus  that  which  roused  de- 
sire also  roused  far-reaching,  lofty,  and  illuminating 
thoughts;  woman  acquired  an  attraction  and  a  charm, 
and  roused  a  devotion  far  beyond  the  mere  enjoyment 
of  the  moment. 

Love  in  its  ideal  aspect,  the  side  of  it  that  enters  into 
consciousness,  the  concrete  imagery  of  poetic  associa- 
tions, castles  in  the  air  and  dream-pictures  that  make 
it  up,  is  but  a  superstructure  created  by  man's  acquired 
habits  of  thought,  knowledge,  and  imagination  upon  the 
basic  instinct  of  sex,  which  alone  is  natural.  With 
woman  this  feeling  gives  birth  to  a  kind  of  continuation 
of  itself  in  the  maternal  instinct.  The  sex  instinct 
brings  the  parents  together;  the  maternal  instinct  binds 
the  children,  first  to  the  mother,  and  in  the  course  of 
development  to  the  parents.  Thus  man,  the  solitary 
wanderer,  is  gathered  into  a  group  bound  together  by 
a  real,  organic  feeling,  independent  of  reason,  and  prior 
to  any  intellectual  culture.  In  the  family  we  have 
human  individuality  completed  in  its  natural  form. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  men  lived  in  families  before 
they  were  obliged  to  sustain  existence  by  effort  and  by 
art.  Superficial  sociologists  often  speak  as  though  the 
organized  community  and  division  of  labour  of  bees  and 
ants,  their  system  of  earning  and  spending,  and  their 
social  arrangements  generally,  were  closely  akin  to  the 
human  State  and  society,  and  could  serve  as  an 
example  to  it.     But  the  beehive  and  the  ant-heap  have 


182     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

nothing  in  common  with  society  and  the  State.  They 
correspond  to  the  family,  not  to  these  artificial  creations. 
The  community  in  which  bees  and  ants  live  is  not  a 
State,  but  the  natural  family  of  these  insects,  in  which 
there  is  one  mother,  many  fathers,  a  mass  of  sexless, 
and  a  few  sexually  distinguished  children.  It  is  natu- 
ral for  bees  and  ants  to  live  in  such  a  community  as 
this,  for  men  to  live  in  families — family  being  under- 
stood purely  as  it  is  natural  history.  With  this,  the 
primitive  instinct  that  binds  the  members  of  a  biological 
family  together,  the  legal  conception  of  a  family  has 
nothing  to  do.  It  is  the  outcome  of  the  development 
of  property,  rather  than,  as  Fustel  de  Coulanges  1  tried 
to  show,  of  early  religious  conceptions,  although  family 
life  had  its  own  rites,  its  own  place  in  the  general  cult. 
Since  the  family  represents  the  real  self-contained  com- 
pletion of  the  individual,  it  is  natural  that  this  crystal- 
lized core  should  dominate  all  later  developments  of 
human  society,  and  that  all  the  institutions  that  ap- 
peared, such  as  property,  belief,  law,  rank,  and  nobility, 
should  centre  in  the  family.  They  influenced  its  form 
and  significance,  but  it  was  there  before  them,  and  is 
not  their  outcome. 

The  sex  instinct  is  the  sole  social  impulse  in  man 
that  is  not  due  to  example,  habit,  or  artificial  interests. 
It  is  the  sole  source  of  sympathetic  emotion,  even  when 
not  apparently  roused  by  the  other  sex.  Where  it  is 
restrained  or  repressed,  as  in  the  eunuch,  the  whole  na- 
ture dries  up,  and  becomes  incapable  of  feeling  for 
anything  or  anyone  outside  itself.     Love  of  child  is  the 

'Fustel  de  Coulanges,  "La  Cit6  Antique,"  Paris,  1888,  twelfth  edi- 
tion, p.  39,  "  The  Family." 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  183 

first  transformation  of  the  sex  instinct;  it  appears  in  a 
still  less  differentiated  and  more  unconscious  form  in 
youthful  friendship :  sentimentality,  exaltation,  enthusi- 
astic admiration  for  ideas  and  their  exponents,  for  move- 
ments and  those  who  lead  them,  for  groups,  classes, 
nations,  and  historical  figures — all  are  the  outcome  of 
that  primitive  instinct  which  reason  and  imagination 
have  trained  to  flow  along  many  artificial  channels, 
like  the  water  of  a  complicated  fountain  that  issues  in 
countless  jets  from  a  single  source.  Bossuet's  truest 
word  was:  "All  is  love  transformed."  A  train  of 
thought  or  act  of  will  which  is  not  at  bottom  rooted  in 
the  rich  soil  of  the  sex  instinct  remains  a  mere  shadow, 
colourless  and  bloodless,  warmed  by  no  feeling,  power- 
less to  issue  in  act. 

But  while  it  is  true  that  sexuality,  raised  to  love  in 
the  course  of  man's  intellectual  development,  holds  the 
world  together,  and  lies  at  the  base  of  all  deeper  human 
interests,  it  would  be  false  to  look  upon  it  as  the  force 
which  has  formed  individuals  into  communities,  be  they 
societies,  peoples,  or  States.  Love  only  created  the 
primitive  family.  This  was,  of  course,  not  based  upon 
monogamy.  The  example  of  the  apes,  and  those  human 
instincts  which  have  not  been  repressed  by  civilized 
morality,  enforce  the  assumption  that  man  was  origi- 
nally a  polygamous  animal:  he  took  and  kept  as  many 
wives  as  he  could  defend  against  rivals.  The  patriarch 
lived  in  the  midst  of  his  wives  and  the  offspring,  to 
which  their  mothers  were  devoted  if  he  was  not,  with- 
out any  close  intercourse  with  other  families.  Children 
remained  with  their  parents  only  until  they  were  fully 
developed;  then  they  went  off  and  started  new  families. 


184     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Descendants  certainly  did  not  go  far  from  the  parent 
tree.  Neither  man  nor  any  other  animal  wanders  unless 
he  is  obliged  to  do  so,  and  of  all  habits  the  hardest 
and  most  painful  to  break  is  that  which  binds  him  to  a 
familiar  spot.  Only  very  late  did  he  feel  any  curiosity 
as  to  what  lay  behind  the  mountains  and  across  the 
water,  still  later  any  desire  for  the  wide  distances  be- 
yond. The  unknown  was  more  terrible  than  attractive 
to  primitive  man.  If  anyone  doubt  this,  let  him  observe 
the  mental  attitude  of  the  simple  man  of  the  people 
towards  foreign  parts.  Doubtless  families  of  a  common 
origin  remained  neighbours;  they  were  accustomed  to 
one  another,  played  together  as  children,  and  found 
their  pleasure  together  later  on.  These  groups,  near 
one  another  and  mixing  together  in  this  superficial  way, 
might  be  called  hordes,  yet  it  is  certain  that  there  was 
in  them  no  organization,  nothing  that  limited  the  volun- 
tary movements  of  the  individual. 

Man  could  only  live  in  this  free  and  peaceful  blood- 
relationship,  disturbed  by  no  serious  strife  save  that  for 
the  possession  of  some  women,  so  long  as  it  was  possible 
for  him  to  satisfy  his  needs  naturally  and  without 
labour.  A  change  came  over  his  relation  to  his  fellows 
when  he  was  compelled  to  expend  skill  and  trouble  in 
protecting  himself  against  cold  and  want.  Then  he 
realized  the  possibility  of  making  them  useful.  His 
indifference  gave  way  to  a  desire  for  their  services. 
Earlier,  the  mating  instinct  alone  had  brought  him  into 
relation  with  them.  Now  the  desire  to  subjugate  them 
and  save  himself  trouble  by  their  exertions  arose.  The 
original  sex  instinct  was  now  reinforced  by  the  instinct 
of  mastery  and  exploitation.     The  satisfaction  of  this 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  185 

second  instinct  was  accompanied  by  a  pleasure  compar- 
able in  strength  and  kind  to  that  of  the  mating  instinct. 
The  strong  man  felt  a  proud  satisfaction  in  mastering 
the  weak,  making  him  his  possession  and  his  thing, 
disposing  of  him  as  he  pleased,  and  making  a  profit 
out  of  him,  analogous  to  that  of  compelling  a  woman 
to  the  satisfaction  of  his  desires;  the  selfish  joy  felt  by 
his  manhood  in  attack  and  conquest  was  rooted  in  the 
sex  instinct,  and  drew  from  it  its  strength.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  struggle  for  existence  the  two  instincts 
mingled  together.  Man  sought  in  woman  not  only  the 
means  to  this  pleasure,  but  a  slave  to  do  his  work. 
Woman,  as  the  weaker,  was  naturally  the  first  sacrifice. 
The  smallest  expenditure  of  strength  and  energy  was 
required  for  her  exploitation.  Thus  the  family,  created 
by  the  necessity  of  the  life  force,  offered  for  centuries 
the  easiest  opening  for  parasitism,  and  does  to-day  in 
many  cases.  The  power  given  by  Roman  law  to  the 
husband  and  father  is  the  natural  rule  of  all  nations; 
it  prevails,  although  in  a  weakened  and  modified  form, 
under  the  most  advanced  civilization. 

At  the  lowest  stage  in  civilization  the  head  of  the 
household  seeks  to  have  as  many  wives  and  children  as 
possible,  since  they  represent  the  earliest  form  of  wealth 
— i.e.,  slaves.  When  the  female  children  grow  up,  and 
can  no  longer  be  retained  by  their  parents,  he  sells  them 
to  a  wooer  in  exchange  for  goods  that  increase  his  pos- 
sessions. The  Greek  myth  of  Kronos  devouring  his 
own  children  symbolizes  accurately  the  primitive  re- 
lation of  the  head  of  the  house  to  his  family.  The 
Greek  story  says  nothing  of  the  retribution  of  the  chil- 
dren who  escaped  being  devoured^.     But  it  is  the  regular 


186     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

custom  of  many  savage  peoples.  When  the  parents 
grow  old  and  weak,  they  are  forcibly  put  to  death  by 
their  children,  who,  in  some  Australian  and  Malayan 
tribes,  then  eat  them.  Gentle  ethnographers  excuse  the 
murder  of  the  parents  on  the  ground  that  it  proceeds 
from  a  praiseworthy  desire  to  free  them  from  the 
burden  of  existence.  But  such  tenderness  is  hardly  to 
be  expected  from  barbarians.  It  is  far  more  probable 
that,  when  the  children  become  the  stronger,  they  re- 
venge in  this  brutal  manner  their  earlier  subjection, 
and  thus  indulge  their  own  parasitic  instinct  at  their 
parents'  expense. 

In  the  course  of  development  land  became  valuable, 
first  as  hunting-ground,  then  as  pasturage,  and  finally  as 
tillage,  and  was  coveted  accordingly.  As  the  younger 
members  of  the  family  grew  up,  and  found  their  native 
spot  too  narrow  for  them,  they  began  to  spread  into  the 
neighbouring  territory.  If  it  was  already  occupied,  a 
death-struggle  ensued.  In  primitive  times  the  van- 
quished were  horribly  tortured,  killed,  and  eaten.  Not 
till  much  later  were  prisoners  taken  and  used  as  domes- 
tic slaves. 

The  earliest  form  of  parasitism  was  exercised  by  man 
towards  his  wife  and  children,  so  long  as  they  would 
suffer  it.  Next  came  war,  under  the  spur  of  stern 
necessity,  and  with  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
life  as  its  object.  Those  who  had  not  were  driven  to 
make  war  on  those  who  had.  Soon,  however,  it  was 
not  only  the  man  who  had  neither  flocks  nor  herds  who 
attacked  the  rich,  to  take  from  him  what  he  needed  and 
had  not,  but  the  rich  man  who  attacked  his  neighbours, 
without  the  excuse  of  need,  in  order  to  increase  his  own 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  187 

possessions,  or  even  merely  for  the  ardent  pleasure  of  it. 
In  battle  a  man  realized  his  personality  and  its  possi- 
bilities to  the  full.  Victory  heightened  his  egoism  to 
a  kind  of  rapture,  and  afforded  it  an  incomparably  keen 
satisfaction  in  high-handed  dealing  with  the  vanquished, 
whom  he  tortured,  mutilated,  murdered,  and  plundered 
at  his  own  good  pleasure.  In  these  primitive  times 
there  was  nothing  symbolical  in  the  exertions  and 
ardours  of  battle  and  victory;  there  was  nothing  abstract 
about  it  or  its  consequences.  The  plans  were  not  laid 
nor  the  advantages  secured  by  leaders  alone.  It  was 
all  jn  the  highest  degree  concrete,  and  the  gain  imme- 
diate and  tangible.  Each  combatant  fought  hand  to 
hand  with  his  opponent,  grappled  his  body  to  him, 
gripped  and  wrestled  with  him,  threatened  him  wildly 
with  look,  mien,  and  gesture,  with  horrible  distortions 
and  hideous  cries,  throttling,  tearing,  and  then  slaugh- 
tering him.  The  conqueror  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  vic- 
tory on  the  spot,  slaking  his  thirst  for  blood  and  his 
greed  for  plunder.  In  those  days  battle  was  the  prepa- 
ration and  the  price  of  the  veritable  orgy  of  victory,  and 
a  man  who  had  once  revelled  in  it  was  filled  with  a  per- 
petual, ardent  desire  for  more.  So  the  old  Germans 
held  war  as  the  noblest  and  most  worthy  occupation  for 
a  man,  promised  an  eternal  abode  in  Valhalla  to  the 
fallen  warrior,  and  looked  upon  a  peaceful  death  as  a 
disgrace. 

Probably  man  is  not  a  warrior  by  nature.  Coward- 
ice is  much  commoner  than  courage,  and  the  natural 
fear  of  death  that  underlies  our  consciousness  is  only 
transformed  into  a  contempt  for  it  by  the  power  of 
example,  education,  the  influence  of  moral  ideas  and 


1 88     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

standards,  and  the  force  of  a  passion  that  obscures  the 
consciousness  itself.  Early  man  probably  only  at- 
tacked when  he  was  certain  of  his  superiority,  and  the 
risk  of  battle  seemed  small  in  proportion  to  the  prize 
of  victory.  Hobbes's  famous  saying  that  man  is  a  wolf 
to  man  must  be  accepted  with  the  limitation  that  he  is  a 
wolf  that  attacks  sheep,  and  makes  off  when  he  meets 
with  resistance. 

When  the  Greeks  raised  their  heroes  to  the  rank  of 
demigods,  and  traced  their  descent  from  the  gods  on  the 
side  of  father  or  mother,  they  came  nearer  to  the  truth. 
There  seemed  something  more  than  mortal  in  a  con- 
tempt for  death  and  the  reckless  encountering  of  risks 
bound  in  human  calculation  to  be  fatal,  something  that 
could  only  be  explained  by  kindred  to  the  immortal  gods. 
Pride  and  idealism  can  act  upon  civilized  men  so 
strongly  that  they  will  dare  the  extremity  of  danger 
without  blanching,  and  even  face  certain  death.  But 
primitive  man  was  no  hero.  Such  heroism  as  he  showed 
came  from  sheer  ignorance  of  danger.  It  was  only 
when  he  saw  no  danger  that  he  became  bold  and  enter- 
prising. Thus,  weakly  individuals,  groups,  hordes,  or 
tribes,  could  not  long  live  side  by  side  with  stronger 
ones,  to  whom  their  weakness  was  a  permanent  tempta- 
tion that  left  them  no  rest  short  of  destroying  or  sub- 
jecting all  those  weaker  members  who  had  not  saved 
themselves  by  flight.  Each  tribe  thus  spread  the  fear 
of  itself  over  an  ever-widening  circle,  until  it  came  upon 
another  stronger  than  itself.  The  individuals,  then, 
being  more  or  less  on  an  equality,  each  side  could  only 
obtain  the  more  or  less  certain  superiority  necessary 
to  stimulate  attack  by  the  possession  of  larger  numbers 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  189 

and  greater  readiness  to  serve.  Thus,  war  could  not 
be  suddenly  undertaken  out  of  hand.  It  was  no  longer 
a  single  combat  between  two  men  or  the  wild  hand-to- 
hand  tussle  of  two  families.  Preparations  were  neces- 
sary, alliances  and  exercises.  Individuals  must  gather 
round  some  leader,  who  had  either  been  chosen  or  had 
forced  himself  upon  the  others  by  the  force  of  person- 
ality. A  plan  of  action  had  to  be  prepared.  Those 
who  hung  back  had  to  be  fortified,  those  who  opposed 
to  be  silenced  or  compelled.  Weapons  and  provisions 
had  to  be  got  ready.  In  a  word,  organization  was 
nesded.  A  campaign  then  assembled  a  number  of 
people,  taught  them  to  exercise  foresight,  to  act  to- 
gether, and  submit  to  command,  to  conceive  of  larger 
purposes,  and  to  regard  themselves  and  their  com- 
panions as  a  unity  brought  together  for  a  common 
project.  If  the  war  ended  in  victory,  the  organization, 
its  advantages  obvious  even  to  the  dullest,  survived 
the  cause  that  had  brought  it  into  existence.  The 
leader,  who  had  felt  the  joys  of  command,  been  re- 
warded by  the  lion's  share  of  the  spoil  and  of  the 
pleasure  of  violating,  torturing,  and  executing  a  very 
large  number  of  captives,  was  not  likely  to  wish  to  give 
up  his  position  on  the  conclusion  of  peace  and  to  return 
to  his  former  obscure  mediocrity.  Cincinnatus  was 
certainly  a  very  unusual  phenomenon  in  primitive  his- 
tory. The  warriors  whom  he  had  led  to  victory  were 
strongly  and  often  passionately  attached  to  him  by  the 
recollection  of  common  dangers  and  exploits,  unless  the 
division  of  the  spoil  had  created  hatred  and  strife.  En- 
riched by  booty,  he  was  in  a  position  to  bind  his  war- 
riors permanently  to  him  by  presents  or  some  sort  of 


190     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

pay,  and  could  strengthen  the  tie  between  them  and 
himself  by  a  continual  succession  of  further  fortunate 
campaigns  and  conquests.1 

Thus  the  commander  is  the  centre  round  which  the 
common  life  crystallizes.  The  origin  of  the  State  lay 
not  in  the  family,  not  in  the  horde,  but  simply  and  solely 
in  the  camp.  There  was  nothing  in  the  circumstances 
of  a  horde  of  related  groups,  used  to  living  casually  side 
by  side,  nothing  in  the  relation  of  man  and  wife  or  of 
parents  and  children,  that  could  in  any  way  compel  the 
formation  of  institutions  which  confined  the  freedom  of 
individuals  within  hard-and-fast  limits,  divided  those 
who  were  born  equal  into  rulers  and  ruled,  and  imposed 
upon  the  individual  the  fixed  forms  of  a  common  life 
which  he  could  not  afterwards  shake  off  at  will.  Only 
war  provided  this  compulsion.  War  created  the  bond 
which  linked  the  individual  to  the  community.  The 
beginning  of  the  State  was  not  sympathy,  but  the  desire 
for  blood  and  plunder.  It  was  not  any  gregarious 
instinct  that  brought  men  together,  but  the  perception 
that  they  were  more  likely  to  get  possession  of  their 
neighbour's  goods  together  than  alone.  It  was  not  in 
peace,  but  in  the  stress  and  danger  of  battle,  that  the 
idea  of  solidarity  arose.     In  the  early  stages  of  civiliza- 

1  Tacitus,  "  Germania,"  xiv. :  "  Magnum  .  .  .  comitatum  non  nisi 
vi  belloque  tueare;  exiguunt  enim  principis  sui  liberalitate  ilium  bella- 
torem  equum,  ilium  cruentam  victricemque  frameam.  nam  epulae,  et 
quanquam  incompti,  largi  tamen  apparatus  pro  stipendio  cedunt; 
materia  munificentiae  per  bella  et  raptus  "  (A  great  train  can  only  be 
maintained  by  war  and  violence;  they  expect  from  the  liberality  of 
their  leader  the  war-horse,  and  the  victorious.  Banquets  that,  though 
rude,  are  abundant  are  a  form  of  pay:  war  and  plunder  provide  the 
meant  for  generosity.) 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  191 

tion  free  individuals  never  willingly  united  for  any- 
fruitful  creative  work,  nor  could  they  have  been  per- 
suaded to  join  together  in  any  civilizing  task.  Violence, 
destruction,  and  plunder,  for  which  union  was  an  in- 
dispensable condition  of  success,  alone  gathered  them 
round  a  leader.  Only  the  stern  command  of  a  leader 
compelled  them  to  common  exertion. 

War,  an  acute  and  exclusive  form  of  parasitism,  was 
alone  the  cause  of  the  formation  of  the  State,  and  for 
long  its  only,  even  to-day  its  principal,  object.  The 
army  is  everywhere  regarded  as  the  most  important 
instrument  of  the  State's  power.  Theoretically,  its  pur- 
pose is  loudly  proclaimed  to  be  not  attack — that  is, 
murder,  robbery,  and  conquest — but  defence;  although 
defence  would  obviously  be  unnecessary,  there  being 
nothing  to  defend,  did  not  every  State  discern  in  every 
neighbour  the  permanent  intention  to  attack  it,  for  no 
other  object  than  that  of  murder,  robbery,  and  conquest. 
The  highest  branch  of  the  public  service  is  considered 
to  be  diplomacy — the  symbolic  embodiment  of  the  war 
power  of  the  State.  The  mere  presence  of  a  diplo- 
matic representative  is  a  continual  reminder  to  neigh- 
bouring States  of  the  army  at  his  back  that  gives  weight 
to  his  utterances.  He  is  the  menace  for  war,  amicably 
disguised.  It  is  his  duty  to  spy  out  the  intentions  and 
armaments  of  neighbouring  powers,  to  aggrandize  his 
own  State  at  the  expense  of  those  that  seem  to  him 
weaker,  and  enforce  his  demands  on  them  by  the  threat 
of  war  and  the  suggestion  that  it  will  be  more  ad- 
vantageous, and  involve  less  sacrifice  on  the  part  of 
the  State  in  question,  to  accede  than  to  resist  it.  Lat- 
terly, the  efforts  of  diplomacy  have  been  directed  to  the 


192      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

avoidance  of  war;  sometimes  it  has  even  gone  so  far 
as  to  consider  the  possibility  of  a  commercial  treaty  on 
a  basis  of  mutual  advantage.  In  earlier  times  such  an 
action  was  unknown,  and  would  have  been  despised. 
Diplomacy,  in  its  nature  and  origin  as  much  an  instru- 
ment of  war  as  an  army,  is  a  military  development  on 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  Its  object  i>  to  obtain 
satisfaction  for  the  selfishness  and  greed  of  the  State  by 
the  mere  spoken  or  silent  indication  of  the  existence  of 
force,  without  recourse  to  the  sword.  It  would  never 
have  been  needed  had  each  State  remained  within  its 
own  limits,  and  demanded  nothing  of  others,  except 
on  the  basis  of  mutual  exchange. 

The  mere  existence  of  an  army  involved  the  necessity 
of  maintaining  it,  and  providing  the  necessary  means  for 
that  purpose,  and  for  its  more  and  more  complete  de- 
velopment. Originally  the  general  paid  his  men  from 
the  private  property  they  amassed  for  him  on  plunder- 
ing expeditions;  but  where  the  general  became  the  head 
of  a  great  land  and  people,  and  war  ceased  to  be  the 
permanent  condition  of  the  community,  the  army,  no 
longer  able  to  rely  upon  booty,  had  to  be  supported  by 
the  community  itself.  Taxes  were  levied :  at  first,  ex- 
traordinary taxes  for  a  special  purpose :  so  long,  that  is, 
as  the  army  was  only  levied  for  a  certain  time  to  per- 
form some  definite  task,  and  could  then  be  dismissed, 
with  the  exception  of  a  bodyguard ;  later,  when  standing 
armies  arose,  regular  taxes,  which  formed  a  permanent 
obligation  on  the  part  of  every  inhabitant.  The  ex- 
istence of  an  army  made  taxation  necessary  and  possible. 
The  State's  need  of  taxes  compelled  it  to  see  that  the 
citizens  were  able  to  pay.     A  foreign  conqueror  might 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  193 

take  all  that  he  found,  without  caring  for  the  ruin  of 
the  people.  The  founder  of  a  State  and  his  successor, 
unless  stupid,  frivolous,  and  profligate  enough  to  echo 
the  Pompadours'  "After  us,  the  deluge!"  must  take 
heed  for  the  future,  cherish  the  hen  that  laid  the  golden 
eggs,  and  see  that  the  taxpayers  were  able  to  fill  the 
coffers  of  the  State.  They  therefore  endeavoured  to 
develop  institutions  that  might  enable  the  hard-working, 
productive  citizen  to  grow  rich  undisturbed,  and  insure 
the  security  of  his  life  and  property.  Wiser  rulers 
avoided  the  excessive  impositions  that  left  the  subject 
no*  stimulus  to  a  labour  of  whose  fruits  he  was  deprived, 
and  penalized  the  poor  man  who  worked  for  the  sake 
of  the  idler:  as  is  the  case  in  ill-governed  States,  where 
the  people  are  simply  ground  down  by  the  government. 
They  assisted  trade  and  industry  by  such  well-meant 
regulations  as  import  dues  and  commercial  treaties. 
Like  Henry  IV.,  they  wished  that  their  subjects  might 
have  a  fowl  in  the  oven  on  a  Sunday,  not  merely  that 
they  might  be  well  fed,  but  because  more  can  be  asked, 
and  got,  from  well-to-do  subjects. 

From  this  consideration  all  the  beneficial  institutions 
in  the  State  arose,  even  such  as  do  not  at  a  first  glance 
appear  to  have  any  connection  with  an  increased  taxable 
and  rateable  capacity.  The  State  laid  roads,  rendered 
rivers  navigable,  and  built  harbours  in  the  first  instance 
for  the  army,  but  in  the  second  for  trade.  The  names 
of  all  subjects  were  inscribed  in  official  registers,  and 
thus  brought  within  the  administrative  net,  available 
when  any  contribution  was  required.  Schools  were 
founded,  and  every  subject  forced  to  rise  to  a  somewhat 
higher  stage  of  intellectual  development,  because  the 


194      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

State  can  do  more  with  brains  into  which  some  ray  of 
enlightenment  has  penetrated  than  with  those  that  are 
totally  dark.  A  code  of  law  was  established,  without 
which  there  would  have  been  a  standing  war  of  all 
against  all,  that  would  have  prevented  the  productivity 
of  labour  and  made  welfare  impossible. 

These  traits  that  seem  to  present  the  friendly  face  of 
culture  are  revealed  to  the  more  penetrating  gaze  as 
those  of  the  fierce  man  of  war.  All  the  departments  of 
the  State,  that  have  crystallized  so  firmly  and  developed 
in  such  subtle  variety  in  the  course  of  centuries,  emanate 
from  one  centre,  and  this  centre  is  preparedness  for  war. 

Such  has  been  the  harsh  course  of  the  organization  of 
men  into  societies  and  States.  So  long  as  nature  satis- 
fies their  wants,  they  feel  no  inclination  to  combine,  but 
live  apart  in  separate  families,  in  which  they  are  bound 
by  the  attraction  of  the  sexes  and  by  brotherhood,  itself 
a  form  of  adaptation  of  this  strongest  of  all  instincts. 
With  the  necessity  of  making  exertions  to  support  life 
parasitism  appears.  The  motive  that  impels  man  to 
seek  out  his  fellows  is  not  a  gregarious  instinct,  as  has 
often  been  maintained,  though  without  proof,  and  con- 
trary to  all  probability  and  to  all  psychological  evidence, 
but  the  profit  to  be  made  from  them  by  force  or  fraud. 
As  long  as  he  can  keep  the  members  of  his  family  in 
subjection  he  exploits  them;  then  he  attacks  his  neigh- 
bours with  ravage  and  slaughter.  Victory  and  its 
advantages  provide  him  with  a  devoted  following,  which 
makes  depredation  possible  on  a  wider  and  more  effec- 
tive scale.  The  leader  understands  that  he  must  keep 
the  instrument  of  this  parasitic  system  in  a  state  of  con- 
stant efficiency,  and  creates  institutions  for  that  purpose. 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  195 

He  collects  the  largest  possible  group  of  men  under  his 
control,  and  abstracts  from  them  the  largest  possible 
share  of  the  fruits  of  their  labour,  compelling  them  to 
supply  him  with  soldiers,  whom  he  supports  by  con- 
tributions forcibly  levied  on  his  other  subjects.  In  so 
far  as  he  is  wise  enough  to  profit  by  the  teachings  of 
experience,  he  endeavours  in  various  ways  to  secure,  in 
the  subjects  who  enable  him  to  be  a  parasite  by  their 
service  in  war  and  at  their  expense  in  time  of  peace,  a 
certain  level  of  satisfaction  in  their  lives  and  work,  and 
a  certain  readiness  to  pay. 

The  absurdity  of  Rousseau's  idea  that  society  origi- 
nated in,  and  now  rests  upon,  a  free  contract  between 
equals  has  long  been  patent.  And  the  same  applies  to 
the  notion,  that  lies  at  the  base  of  all  Socialist  theories 
and  systems,  that  men  formed  themselves  in  communi- 
ties for  the  execution  of  great  works  of  social  utility 
which  were  beyond  the  powers  of  individuals.  In  a 
future  that  is  certainly  not  yet  in  sight  men  may  attain 
such  a  height  of  mental  and  moral  development  that 
they  will  voluntarily,  as  the  outcome  of  conviction, 
undertake  some  common  task  in  which  the  profit  accru- 
ing to  any  individual  from  his  personal  exertion  is  not 
at  the  first  glance  obvious.  The  past  affords  no  ex- 
ample of  free  co-operation  of  this  systematic  kind. 
Work  got  done  by  means  of  severe  discipline,  or  com- 
pulsion exercised  by  men  or  by  institutions  representing 
the  crystallized  will-power  of  former  men.  Everyone 
evaded  work  where  he  could,  and  shifted  the  burden  of 
it  on  to  his  neighbour.  The  foundation  of  the  State 
was  neither  a  contract  nor  a  recognition  of  the  value  of 
rational  co-operation :  it  was  organized  parasitism,  the 


196      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

exploitation  of  the  weak  many  by  a  ruler  and  the 
mediate  and  immediate  servants  of  his  power;  the  ex- 
ploitation of  weak  neighbours  by  war  or  by  treaties 
imposed  upon  them  by  war,  or  the  explicit  or  implicit 
threat  of  war. 

Descriptions  and  explanations  of  the  State  are  legion. 
One  jurist  and  political  philosopher  sees  in  the  State 
11  the  organization  of  the  male  population  of  a  country 
to  form  an  independent  person  directing  the  common 
life  ";  another  sees  in  it  "  the  total  resident  population 
within  a  certain  territory  united  to  form  an  organic 
moral  personality  under  a  supreme  power  directing  the 
common  interests."  To  quote  more  of  these  pleonasms 
seems  to  me  superfluous.  The  second  definition  is  a 
masterpiece  of  phrase-making.  All  that  has  to  be 
proved  is  assumed,  and  the  impudent  assumptions  then 
combined  to  form  a  picture,  not  of  the  reality,  but  of  the 
idea  which  jurisprudence  and  political  philosophy  wish 
to  spread.  According  to  it,  the  State  is  a  totality 
united  "  under  a  supreme  power  directing  the  common 
interests."  This  is  what  the  supreme  power  has  always 
tried  to  make  out,  since  people  began  to  ask  for  some 
justification  of  its  claim.  History,  however,  teaches 
that  it  never  has  directed  the  "  common  interest,"  but 
first  and  foremost  the  interest  of  some  individual  or 
family,  and  then  that  of  the  necessary  instruments  of 
its  power.  In  the  course  of  development  the  circle 
of  these  instruments  widens.  In  countries  under  Par- 
liamentary government  it  embraces  not  only  the  army 
and  the  Ministry,  but  the  members  and  their  con- 
stituents. Even  so  the  supreme  power  is  always  in- 
vested in  a  small  minority,  to  which  the  majority  is 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  197 

sacrificed,  as  is  proved  by  the  advantages  enjoyed  by 
the  landed  interest  in  the  shape  of  import  duties  and 
in  direct  taxation,  etc.  All  that  can  be  said  is,  that 
the  supreme  power  always  represents  the  measures 
passed  for  its  own  advantage  as  being  for  the  general 
good.  Well-intentioned  professors  teach  that  they  are 
so,  and  the  stupid  many  believe  it.  Again,  it  is  only 
by  doing  violence  to  the  truth  that  the  State  can  be 
said  to  unite  the  community  in  an  "  organic  moral  per- 
sonality." "  Organic  personality "  is  a  meaningless, 
senseless  phrase  which  corresponds  to  no  idea.  The 
State  is  a  concept,  not  a  personality.  It  is  not  an 
organism  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  can  be  applied 
to  a  living  thing,  but  a  collection  of  biologically  inde- 
pendent individuals,  whose  mutual  dependence  is  en- 
tirely due  to  human  compulsion. 

Moreover,  the  little  word  "  moral "  has  been  very 
cunningly  smuggled  into  the  definition.  Morality  plays 
absolutely  no  part  in  the  formation  of  the  State.  It  has 
proceeded  simply  and  solely  with  a  view  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  supreme  power.  The  famous  saying,  "  My 
country,  right  or  wrong,"  recognizes  this  with  cynical 
frankness.  "  My  country  " — that  is,  the  supreme  con- 
trol in  the  State,  which  has  throughout  centuries  taught 
its  subjects  that  it  is  synonymous  with  their  country: 
that  it  should  be  dear  to  them :  that  they  should  love  it, 
feel  its  hard  compulsion  like  a  caress,  and  make  the 
sacrifices  that  it  relentlessly  demands  of  them  in  no 
spirit  of  hatred  and  imprecation,  but  with  feelings  ol 
enthusiasm  and  delight.  The  supreme  control,  then, 
may  commit  all  the  enormities  in  the  shape  of  massacre, 
robbery,  and  fraud  that  mark;  every  invasion — such,  to 


198      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

take  a  few  concrete  examples,  as  marked  the  partition 
of  Poland,  the  wars  of  the  first  coalition  against  France, 
the  campaign  of  France  against  the  Roman  Republic 
in  1848,  the  French  war  against  Mexico,  or  England's 
attack  on  the  Boer  States;  yet,  because  it  does  all  this 
in  the  soul-stirring  name  of  country,  it  is  held  to  be  the 
duty  of  every  subject,  even,  by  the  abuse  of  an  honour- 
able idea,  his  sacred  duty,  to  acclaim  these  base  actions, 
to  support  that  power  that  performs  them  through 
thick  and  thin,  even  to  be  proud  of  it.  Such  is  the 
morality  of  the  "organic  moral  personality,"  which 
the  State  is  supposed  to  represent. 

The  name  "  legal  State  "  is,  like  the  "  organic  moral 
personality,"  a  mere  servile  invention  of  phrase-monger- 
ing professors.  The  purpose  of  the  State  is  said  to  be 
to  secure  an  equal  law  for  all,  in  place  of  mere  despot- 
ism, and  so  to  protect  individual  rights.  This  is  only 
true  so  far  as  it  concerns  small  interests  and  differences 
among  subjects  themselves.  In  such  cases  there  is 
usually  no  cause  for  the  supreme  power  to  take  one 
side  or  the  other.  It  can  view  the  strife  with  perfect 
indifference,  decide  it  according  to  the  citation  of  the 
law,  and  see  that  the  individual  neither  do  violence  to 
his  neighbour  nor  seek  to  protect  himself  against  at- 
tempted retribution  with  his  fists.  It  must,  of  course, 
prevent  any  disorder  that  would  be  inimical  to  the  gen- 
eral weal,  and  hinder  the  State  from  disposing  of  the 
whole  people  for  its  own  advantage.  Whenever  the 
question  at  issue  is  an  important  one,  or  the  interest  of 
the  subject  come  at  all  in  conflict  with  that  of  the 
supreme  power,  the  law  is  powerless.  The  picture  of 
a  legal  State  evaporates,  and  the  State  once  more  ap- 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  199 

pears  as  a  power  organized  in  the  service  of  parasitic 
self-aggrandizement.  The  difference  between  the  des- 
pot of  the  East  and  the  Western  community,  with 
its  constitutions,  codes  of  law,  rules  of  legal  procedure, 
and  questions  of  appurtenances,  is  only  a  difference  of 
form.  The  despot  simply  takes  the  property  of  his 
subject  and  strikes  off  his  head  if  he  is  discontented;  the 
legal  State  compels  him,  by  process  of  expropriation,  to 
subscribe  to  a  levy,  that  must  in  all  cases  be  paid  by  the 
other  subjects,  some  possession  that  all  the  gold  in  the 
world  would  not  have  induced  him  to  part  with.  The 
despot  answers  a  subject  who  speaks  of  his  rights  with 
the  stick  or  the  axe;  the  legal  State  uses  its  courts  to 
show  him  his  own  helplessness,  and  its  government  de- 
partments to  prove  the  sovereignty  of  the  State,  and 
then,  if  he  make  a  nuisance  of  himself  by  citing  the 
laws,  shuts  him  up  in  prison  or  in  an  asylum.  In  the 
"  legal "  State  force  is  called  law,  but  it  is  as  irre- 
sponsibly exercised  under  this  fine  name  as  under  despot- 
ism. It  is  small  comfort  to  the  helpless  individual  to 
have  the  supreme  power  going  through  the  hypocrisy 
of  citing  articles  and  paragraphs  before  violating  his 
right,  instead  of  doing  it  without  such  formal  pre- 
tence. 

The  touching  little  story  of  the  miller  of  Sans  Souci 
is  always  quoted  to  illustrate  the  majesty  of  the  law  in 
a  legal  State.  Here  we  have  a  great  King  and  a  petty 
dispute.  But  had  the  King  been  petty  and  the  dispute 
great,  the  miller  would  have  found  there  was  no  judicial 
court  for  him  in  Berlin.  On  innumerable  occasions 
States  have  gone  bankrupt,  refused  to  pay  interest  on 
their  loans,  repudiated  definite  treaties,  and  appropri- 


200     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ated  private  property.  The  State  can  make  its  sover- 
eignty the  excuse  for  overriding  any  law  binding  on  all 
its  subjects.  Even  when  it  is  not  itself  concerned,  the 
legal  State  will  refuse  all  assistance  in  a  dispute  between 
a  powerless  subject  and  an  exceptionally  powerful  one. 
The  famous  suit  brought  in  1674  by  the  cabinet-maker 
James  Percy,  in  which  he  claimed  the  title  and  posses- 
sions of  the  house  of  the  then  Earl,  now  Duke,  of 
Northumberland,  was  dismissed,  although  there  was  no 
evidence  against  it.  It  would  go  in  just  the  same  way 
to-day.  In  the  course  of  the  last  century  there  has 
come  up  again  and  again  the  plea  of  the  heirs  of  a 
certain  Martin  to  the  recovery  of  their  inheritance,  a 
great  sum  of  money  deposited  in  the  State  Bank  at 
Venice,  and  appropriated  by  the  French  officials  in  the 
taking  of  Venice  in  1797.  The  plea  has  been  as  often 
rejected  by  the  French  judicature,  merely  because  the 
State  would  be  otherwise  compelled  to  hand  over  the 
many  millions  it  has  unjustly  appropriated. 

The  phrase  for  which  Bismarck  has  been  so  sharply 
criticized,  although  he  never  used  it * — "  Might  before 
right " — is  perfectly  accurate,  not  as  a  principle  accord- 
ing to  which  action  should  proceed,  but  as  a  statement 
of  the  manner  in  which  it  does  proceed.  Nowadays, 
of  course,  the  cry  of  the  common  good  is  always  raised 
when  the  power  of  the  State  overrides  the  rights  of  sub- 
jects or  of  neighbours  weaker  than  itself.  The  method 
is  the  familiar  one  of  identifying  the  supreme  power  in 

1  Georg  Biichmann  ("  Winged  Words,"  eighteenth  edition,  Berlin, 
1895,  P  481)  proves  that  in  the  Prussian  Senate,  on  March  13,  1863, 
Count  Bismarck  expressly  refuted  the  allegation  made  by  Count 
Schwerin  that  he  had  used  the  phrase,  "  Might  comes  before  right." 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  201 

the  State  with  the  country,  and  the  advantages  of  the 
ruler  or  ruling  class  with  that  of  the  people  as  a  whole. 
Right  without  might  is  a  word  only;  might  can  give  its 
arbitrary  actions  right.  If  it  is  strong  enough  and  lasts 
long  enough,  it  no  longer  needs  to  make  any  actual 
exertion  to  give  effect  to  its  will.  Its  will  has  become 
right.  Right  is  its  symbol — a  symbol  that  often  con- 
tinues to  overcome  all  resistance  long  after  the  will 
behind  it  has  ceased  to  possess  any  effective  power.  But 
when  another  will  rises  in  opposition,  and  tests  the 
energy  and  resistance  of  this  sublimated  might,  then  the 
right  which  has  outlived  its  might  dissolves  into  thin 
air. 

All  the  high-flown  theories  of  a  legal  State,  the  State 
as  a  moral  being,  the  State  as  a  living  organism  which 
perceives  the  interests  of  the  people  as  a  whole,  have 
been  invented  by  the  quibbling  rhetoricians,  who  devote 
all  the  resources  of  their  art  to  disguising  the  harsh 
outline  of  facts  as  they  are  with  a  decoration  of  words. 
They  do  this  by  assigning  such  causes  and  purposes  as 
are  calculated  to  create  reverence  in  the  uncritical  mul- 
titude, and  explaining  everything  to  the  advantage  of 
those  who  profit  by  the  existing  order.  When  Louis 
XIV.  said,  "  I  am  the  State,"  he  expressed  the  truth 
with  brutal  brevity.  It  is  the  shortest  and  most  lucid 
statement  of  the  fact.  The  State  is  the  government — 
originally  a  ruler,  then  a  class,  a  circle  of  families 
united  by  relationship  and  similarity  of  interests,  a 
conquering  race.  Its  own  compelling  necessity  has  led 
the  government  to  create  every  institution  calculated 
to  insure  it  the  permanent  subjection,  obedience,  and 
readiness  to  pay  of  the  majority.    The  gradual  rise  of 


202     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  State  machine  in  its  present  universal  and  complete 
development  has  been,  and  is,  directed  to  one  purpose — 
the  exploitation  of  the  many  for  the  advantage  of  the 
governing  person  or  class — i.e.,  parasitism. 

St.  Augustine  had  a  clear  intuition  of  this  when  he 
put,  as  the  heading  of  the  fourth  chapter  of  Book  IV. 
in  the  "  De  Civitate  Dei,"  "  Quam  similia  sint  latrociniis 
regna  absque  justitia  " — "  now  kingdoms  remote  from 
justice  resemble  robber  bands";  and  continues:  "If 
there  be  no  justice,  what  are  kingdoms  but  great  robber 
bands?  And  what  are  robber  bands  but  little  king- 
doms? "  He  then  goes  on  to  give  the  famous  classical 
anecdote  of  the  pirate  who  was  captured  and  brought 
before  Alexander  the  Great.  When  the  King  asked 
him  how  he  came  to  make  the  sea  unsafe,  he  replied: 
"  Eleganter  et  veraciter  " — "  In  the  same  manner  that 
thou  makest  the  earth  unsafe;  but  because  I  do  it  in 
my  little  ship  I  am  called  a  robber,  and  thou  who  dost 
it  in  a  great  fleet  art  called  Imperator."  Thus  the 
Bishop  of  Hippo  makes  justice  the  sole  dividing-line 
between  the  State  and  the  robber  band,  without  per- 
ceiving that  when  the  State  has  reduced  its  robbery 
to  a  system,  and  in  the  course  of  generations  accus- 
tomed to  it  those  who  are  robbed,  it  calls  the  system 
justice. 

Fr.  Engels  *  observes  correctly  that  civilized  society 
is  organized  in  a  State  which  is  "  exclusively  the  State 
of  the  governing  class,  always  a  machine  whose  essential 
purpose  is  to  keep  down  the  oppressed  and  exploited 
class."     Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu,  who,  unlike  Engels,  is  no 

1  Fr.  Engels,  "  The  Origin  of  the  Family,  of  Private  Property,  and 
of  the  State,"  sixth  edition,  Stuttgart,  1894. 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  203 

Socialist,  says  the  same  thing  in  more  measured  terms : 1 
"  The  State  is  an  organism  characterized  by  two  activi- 
ties peculiar  to  it  and  always  present  in  it — the  power 
to  compel  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  district  to  observe  the 
commands  called  laws  or  regulations,  and  the  power 
to  compel  them  to  pay  contributions  in  money,  of  which 
it  disposes  at  its  pleasure.  The  organization  of  the 
State  is  thus  based  upon  compulsion,  and  its  compulsion 
takes  two  forms — laws  and  taxes." 

The  outline  drawn  by  the  conqueror,  warrior,  and 
oppressor  is  filled  up  in  the  course  of  historical  develop- 
ment in  accordance  with  the  standard  of  civilization. 
The  multitude  acquires  enlightenment  and  judgment, 
and  refuses  to  be  plundered  lawlessly.  The  beneficiary 
of  the  government  has  to  flatter  the  whims  and  humours 
of  the  governed.  He  can  no  longer  satisfy  his  own 
desires  without  a  thought  of  others.  He  must  employ 
at  least  a  part  of  the  means  he  has  wrung  from  the 
people  upon  objects  that  appear  at  any  rate  to  be  of 
general  utility,  which  can  be  said  to  do  something  for 
the  majority  in  the  way  of  alleviating  the  struggle  for 
existence  or  adding  some  element  of  material  or  intel- 
lectual well-being  to  their  lives.  The  circle  of  the 
State's  beneficiaries  widens.  It  opens  to  include  obscure 
individuals  who  have  made  their  way  by  inherent  force 
rather  than  by  birth  or  social  connections.  To  use  the 
threadbare  political  tag,  meaningless  enough  in  itself, 
the  State  becomes  democratic.  The  majority  often 
succeed  in  setting  up  an  institution  that  establishes  a 
material  solidarity  of  interests  between  themselves  and 

1  Paul   Leroy-Beaulieu,   "  L'Etat   Moderne  ct   ses  Fonctiona,"  Paris, 
1876,  p.  40. 


204     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  favoured  minority,  and  exploits  the  descendants  of 
former  plunderers  for  the  advantage  of  the  majority — 
for  example,  the  rising  income-tax,  State  endowment 
of  Old  Age  Pensions,  provision  of  every  sort  out  of 
the  public  funds. 

But  this  partial  change  of  content  leaves  the  form  of 
the  State  and  its  methods  of  compulsion  untouched.  Its 
origin  in  the  violence  of  the  warrior,  and  its  purpose  as 
a  permanent  system  of  plundering  enslaved  subordi- 
nates, is  obvious  in  the  whole  and  in  every  part  of  it. 

Free  men  have  always  seen  in  taxes,  the  earliest  form 
of  subject  due,  an  intolerable  mark  of  personal  servi- 
tude, and  continually  risen  against  them.  The  whole 
of  European  history,  from  the  migrations  to  the  French 
Revolution,  is  occupied  by  the  contest  of  territorial 
chiefs,  great  or  small,  who  refused  to  recognize  the 
"  legal  State,"  "  the  moral  organism,"  or  "  the  supreme 
power  controlling  the  interests  of  the  whole,"  against 
the  King,  who  was  resolved  to  break  the  power  of  the 
feudal  lords,  and  subdue  them  to  his  will,  to  put  an 
end  to  their  control  of  the  lands  and  lives  of  their 
dependents,  and  reserve  the  exploitation  of  subjects  to 
himself  alone.  The  State  affords  no  proof  of  a  primi- 
tive gregarious  instinct  in  man.  Its  origin  is  not  due 
to  any  instinct  to  combine  and  live  in  a  society;  its 
development  was  not  conditioned  by  the  love  of  neigh- 
bours or  the  sentiment  of  solidarity.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  was  invented  by  selfishness,  and  carried  out  by 
force  as  the  machinery  of  parasitism.  It  is  upheld  by 
the  advantages  of  order  and  a  general  division  of 
labour,  by  the  adaptability  of  man,  by  the  power  of 
habit,  which  gradually  forms  and  transforms  everything 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  205 

it  touches,  and  even  interpenetrates  the  emotional  life 
of  man,  and  by  the  fact  that  while  the  majority  are 
dull,  utterly  incapable  of  comprehending  the  causal 
connection  between  a  number  of  effects,  cowardly  and 
indisposed  to  effort,  the  minority,  on  the  contrary,  are 
parasites,  filled  with  a  lively  sense  of  their  own  ad- 
vantage that  sharpens  their  reason  on  the  practical 
side,  and  makes  them  fertile  in  expedients  for  carrying 
out  their  ends.  They  are  fully  aware  of  their  superior- 
ity, and  occasionlly  even  incautious  enough  to  boast  of 
it — as,  for  example,  when  the  Minister,  von  Rochow, 
forgot  himself  so  far  as  to  let  slip  the  words,  "  the 
limited  intellect  of  subjects." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION 

All  political  and  social  institutions  government,  the 
payment  of  taxes,  service,  obedience,  law  and  its  en- 
forcement, compulsory  attendance  at  school,  and  the 
mechanism  of  trade,  as  well  as  the  State  itself,  represent 
the  gradual  manifestation  of  a  single  force,  provide  the 
necessary  means  by  which  a  strong  personality  exploits 
its  fellows  for  its  own  ends.  But  there  is  another 
order  of  phenomena,  whose  aim  was  not  originally 
parasitic,  and  which  did  not  arise  out  of  violence:  the 
religious  feelings,  their  expressions,  and  the  positive 
creeds,  ceremonies,  and  priestly  orders  into  which  they 
have  crystallized. 

The  religious  feelings  are,  like  the  tendency  to  para- 
sitism, deeply  and  subtly  rooted  in  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  but  they  early  pursued  an  independent  and 
separate  growth.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation  in 
man  was  not  forced  into  the  parasitic  channel  until 
natural  conditions,  becoming  unfavourable  and  even 
positively  hostile,  imposed  upon  him  the  painful  neces- 
sity of  labour.  The  religious  feeling,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  undoubtedly  active  in  primitive  man,  even 
while  nature  abundantly  satisfied  his  wants.  Even  had 
the  Ice  Age  never  supervened  to  threaten  him  with 
death  by  cold  and  starvation,  it  would  have  developed 

206 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     207 

and  differentiated.  Ignorance  alone  can  account  for 
Volney's  childish  assertion  that  religion  was  invented  by 
priests,  or  for  the  question  whether  there  are  peoples 
who  have  no  religion.  Such  people  cannot  exist,  since 
religious  ideas  are  formed  as  the  result  of  biological 
necessity.  To  make  this  plain,  the  true  nature  of  the 
religious  feelings  must  be  discerned. 

I  have  said  that  the  religious  feeling  is  deeply 
grounded  in  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  This  in- 
stinct expresses  itself,  on  the  one  hand,  in  a  hunger  for 
knowledge;  on  the  other,  in  a  clinging  to  life.  The 
desire  to  investigate  the  nature  of  its  environment  is 
proper  to  every  living  thing  whose  development  has 
gone  beyond  a  merely  passive  tropism,  in  which  internal 
movements  and  changes  proceed  in  response  to  external 
physical  and  chemical  influences,  without  any  apparent 
intervention  of  consciousness  or  will.  It  is  the  condi- 
tion of  that  differentiated  life  which  no  creature  can 
attain  without  active  investigation  into  environment, 
and  the  endeavour  to  obtain  from  it  a  variety  of  sense 
impressions  which  are  there  compared,  combined,  and 
interpreted. 

It  is  only  through  the  constant  activity  of  curiosity 
that  the  knowledge  of  actuality  possible  at  any  stage  of 
development  is  acquired  by  the  living  creature,  and  with 
it  the  art  of  discovering  such  conditions  as  are  useful, 
and  avoiding  such  as  are  dangerous  to  it.  In  this  way  it 
learns  to  protect  itself  against  all  the  harms  that 
threaten  its  existence,  and  to  provide  all  that  is  neces- 
sary for  its  maintenance,  including  all  sorts  of  pleasures. 
As  the  living  thing  develops,  and  its  needs  become  more 
complex,  its  knowledge  must  become  more  various  and 


208      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

delicate,  and  the  curiosity,  of  which  that  knowledge  is 
the  fruit,  stronger  and  more  constant.  At  the  lowest 
stage  of  consciousness  curiosity  can  include  form  and 
content  in  the  simple  question  "What?"  The  living 
thing  wishes  to  know  the  properties  of  the  phenomena 
that  enter  the  field  of  its  consciousness.  At  a  higher 
stage  the  question  becomes  "How?"  It  is  no  longer 
satisfied  to  perceive  the  qualities  of  phenomena  through 
the  senses;  it  seeks  also  to  know  the  relations  of  these 
qualities  to  one  another,  the  order  in  which  the 
phenomena  occur,  the  connection  perceptible  between 
them,  and  the  extent  to  which  they  are  interdependent. 
Finally,  at  the  highest  stage  the  question  is  "Why?" 
The  living  thing  no  longer  solely  wishes  to  know  what 
lies  before  it,  and  the  manner  in  which  phenomena  are 
observed  to  pass  before  experience;  it  seeks  to  discern 
their  cause,  and  to  understand  the  reason  which  com- 
pels everything  to  be  as  it  is  and  prevents  it  from  being 
otherwise. 

The  question  "What?"  can  be  answered  by  the 
senses,  expressing  themselves  through  the  centre  of  per- 
ception. But  the  answer  to  the  question  "  How?  "  can- 
not be  given  by  mere  perception.  It  transcends  the  im- 
mediate evidence  of  the  senses.  For  it,  the  images 
stored  in  the  memory  must  be  called  up  and  associated, 
former  impressions  compared,  sifted  and  selected,  and 
the  judgment  thence  acquired  must  then  be  tested  by 
comparison  with  reality — that  is,  with  new  sense  per- 
ceptions. This  premises  the  existence  of  higher  centres 
of  association  and  co-ordination.  A  satisfactory  solu- 
tion to  the  question  "  Why?  "  is  not  to  be  obtained  from 
the  immediate  perceptions  of  the  senses.    The  reason  of 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     209 

things  lies  outside  of  sense  experience.  It  is  not  imme- 
diately perceptible.  It  can  only  be  divined  or  deduced. 
Such  an  intuition,  such  a  supposition,  such  knowledge  of 
it  as  is  possible  at  all,  must  be  the  work  of  the  intellect, 
which  creates  from  the  material  available  in  perception 
something  new,  not  actually  existing — a  concept.  An 
intellectual  representation  of  the  relation  that  does  or 
may  subsist  between  each  phenomenon  and  those  that 
have  gone  before  or  follow  after  it  can  only  be  obtained 
through  the  concept.  Experiences,  when  thus  grouped 
under  concepts,  form  orders  of  ideas  that  include  all  the 
concepts  relative  to  the  phenomena  whose  regular  con- 
nection has  to  be  investigated.  Those  concepts  that  are 
obviously  incompatible  will  be  eliminated  by  the  con- 
sciousness, if  sane  and  attentive.  This  task  is  intel- 
lectual, and  it  is  only  rendered  possible  by  the  develop- 
ment of  the  faculty  of  abstract  thought. 

Error  as  to  the  "What"  is  hardly  possible.  The 
organism  has  only  to  determine  such  concrete  charac- 
ters of  phenomena  as  the  development  of  its  percep- 
tive apparatus  permits,  and  unless  this  is  in  some 
way  diseased,  it  will  not  refuse  its  office — that  is, 
give  inaccurate  information  or  none  at  all,  fail 
to  respond,  or  produce  hallucinations.  In  that  case 
only  will  the  living  thing  fail  to  obtain  the  pos- 
sible and  necessary  information  about  its  environ- 
ment. 

But  the  answer  to  the  question  "How?"  is  more 
liable  to  be  false.  Let  but  one  link  in  the  chain  of  indi- 
vidual phenomena  under  observation  be  overlooked 
through  fatigue  or  carelessness,  or  underestimated  by 
the  attention.    A  fruitful  source  of  error,  too,  is  found 


2io     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

in  the  tendency  to  argue  by  analogy.  There  is  often  no 
concrete  connection  even  between  wholly  external 
phenomena:  the  passage  of  an  electric  current  along  a 
wire,  or  the  sounding  of  a  distant  bell  in  response  to 
pressure  on  a  knob  near  at  hand,  cannot  be  immediately 
perceived  by  our  senses,  but  have  to  be  guessed  at  and 
explained  by  comparison  with  other  phenomena  that  do 
fall  within  the  field  of  direct  observation.  The  analogy 
may  easily  be  fallacious.  A  false  or  misleading  inter- 
pretation of  external  features  may  suggest  a  similarity 
where  none  exists,  and  lead  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
unknown  by  a  known  that  has  nothing  in  common 
with  it. 

To  take  only  one  example.  Leibnitz  was  aware  that 
an  impulse  of  the  will,  developed  in  the  brain,  passes 
along  the  nerves,  and  sets  up  muscular  contractions. 
How  does  this  take  place?  At  that  time  the  only  in- 
stance known  of  the  transmission  of  energy  to  a  point 
far  removed  from  its  source  was  that  of  a  mechanical 
connection  set  up  by  a  pull  or  pressure.  The  standard 
instance  of  this  system  is  a  bell-pull.  You  pull  a  handle, 
a  wire  or  cord  carries  on  the  movement,  and  a  bell  at 
some  distance  connected  with  the  cord  rings.  On  this 
plan  Leibnitz  then  explained  the  action  of  the  will  upon 
the  muscks.  The  will  gives  a  pull  in  the  brain,  the 
nerves  transmit  it  like  a  wire,  and  the  muscles  vibrate 
like  the  bell.  Later  the  theory  of  electricity  was  de- 
veloped. The  words  "  electric  stream  "  and  "  electric 
current"  appeared.  A  new  analogy  suggested  itself: 
that  of  a  system  of  pipes  conveying  a  fluid,  as  in  the  case 
of  an  aqueduct  or  canal.  Since  the  physiologists  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  regarded  the  ac- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     211 

tivity  of  the  nerves  as  a  manifestation  of  electricity, 
they  all  spoke  of  the  nervous  fluid,  and  conceived  of  the 
energy  of  the  will  as  being  transmitted  from  the  brain, 
along  the  nerves,  to  the  muscles,  in  the  manner  in  which 
a  message  is  forwarded  by  the  telegraphic  apparatus 
along  the  wires  to  the  receiving  station.  Nowadays  the 
analogy  of  the  telegram  is  dismissed  with  a  smile,  like 
Leibnitz's  notion  of  the  bell,  the  tendency  being  to 
suppose  that  chemical  changes  take  place  in  the  nerves, 
and  are  transmitted  from  one  end  to  the  other  at  the, 
rate  of  about  ten  metres  a  second.  This  suggests  the 
mode  of  ignition  exemplified  by  a  lampwick  or  a  train 
of  gunpowder.  Probably  this  analogy  is  no  more  ac- 
curate as  a  description  of  what  goes  on  in  the  nervous 
system  than  the  bell-pull  or  the  telegraphic  wire.  Thus 
the  answer  to  the  question  "How?"  though  often  in- 
exact, will  satisfy  the  questioner  in  the  absence  of  known 
facts  which  invalidate  it. 

In  the  question  "  Why?  "  the  senses  can  give  no  help 
at  all.  It  is  all  supposition,  guesswork,  matter  of 
opinion.  Yet  we  have  a  persistent  desire  to  know  not 
only  how,  but  why,  things  are  as  they  are.  The  experi- 
ences of  our  consciousness,  which  presents  events  to  us 
as  conditioned  by  one  another,  and  therefore  as  causally 
connected,  enslaves  our  thought  to  the  notion  of  causal- 
ity; the  conviction  is  permanently  imposed  upon  us  that 
every  phenomenon  has  some  necessary  and  sufficient 
cause  in  a  preceding  one;  we  cannot  rest  without  some 
idea  of  the  nature  of  this  cause.  As  to  the  adequacy 
of  this  idea,  we  are  hardly  ever  in  a  position  to  decide, 
since  we  cannot  investigate  a  connection  that  lies  outside 
the  senses.     It  is  developed  from  the  knowledge  at  our 


212      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

disposal,  and  we  are  content  if  it  is  not  contradicted  by 
any  part  of  it. 

Every  organism  within  the  limits  of  its  capacity  asks 
"What?"  for  unless  it  could  and  did  perpetually  in- 
vestigate the  character  of  its  environment,  it  could  not 
maintain  its  existence  for  a  moment.  Curiosity  as  to 
"  How "  belongs  at  least  to  the  higher  vertebrates. 
Comparatively  complicated  phenomena,  like  a  trap  or 
the  mystery  of  a  closed  manger-door,  do  certainly  fall 
within  their  observation.  But  the  desire  to  know  why 
is  the  privilege  of  man  alone.  It  is,  I  must  add,  a  priv- 
ilege hitherto  entirely  profitless.  For  all  his  investiga- 
tion and  thought,  all  his  observation  and  guesswork, 
man  has  not  advanced  by  one  hair's-breadth ;  we  are  no 
nearer  knowing  the  real  cause  of  a  single  phenomenon 
than  our  ancestors  in  the  first  Stone  Age.  The  endless 
search  for  the  cause  of  things  may  have  had  a  heuristic 
value,  but  even  so  much  is  not  certain.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  we  should  have  all  the  knowledge  we  now 
possess  had  we  been  content,  instead  of  searching  for 
the  cause  of  things  that  must  for  ever  elude  our  search, 
carefully  to  observe  their  order,  their  mutual  relation  so 
far  as  it  can  be  perceptible  by  the  sejnses,  and  the  quali- 
tative and  quantitative  mechanics  of  their  interaction. 
This  assumption  seems  the  more  probable  since  such 
knowledge  as  we  do  possess  has  been,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  attained  without  the  cognizance  of  a  single  cause — 
or,  we  may  say,  of  the  single  cause,  since  probably  there 
is  only  one.  All  our  knowledge  but  goes  to  prove  that 
we  have  been  able  to  establish  all  sorts  of  facts, 
and  to  test  their  exactitude  by  useful  inventions, 
without  the  slightest  suspicion  of  the  cause,  even  in  the 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     213 

case  of  those  that  are  under  our  control.  Our  results 
therefore  serve  us,  although  we  do  not  know  their  cause, 
and,  indeed,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  we  suffer  in  no  way 
from  our  ignorance  on  this  point.  Without  knowing 
anything  of  the  cause  of  magnetism  in  the  earth  we  con- 
structed the  compass,  which  made  navigation  secure. 
Without  knowing  the  cause  of  the  relation  expressed  in 
Carnot's  second  formula,  we  have  built  steam-engines 
of  the  most  perfect  kind,  on  the  principle  that  mechan- 
ical power  is  created  by  a  warm  body  acting  upon  a  cold 
one.  Kepler  knew  nothing  of  attraction,  yet  he  discov- 
ered his  three  laws  which  enabled  the  movements  of  the 
planets  to  be  calculated  exactly  without  explaining  them 
at  all.  Soon  afterwards  Newton  discovered  the  law  of 
gravitation,  again  without  any  idea  of  the  nature  of 
attraction — that  is,  of  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon 
which  he  had  reduced  to  an  algebraic  expression.  Ob- 
servation of  natural  phenonena  is  a  necessity  of  our  ex- 
istence, but  knowledge  of  the  cause  of  phenomena  is  not 
necessary  for  this  observation,  and  the  desire  for  it  is 
not  biological  in  its  origin,  not  an  expression  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  at  all.  It  is  the  logical  out- 
come of  the  nature  of  our  consciousness,  and  the  fact 
that  our  thought  is  governed  by  the  law  of  causality. 
Only  the  dullard  can  fail  to  draw  the  conclusion  from 
its  premises,  and  trace  a  result  back  to  the  assumptions 
on  which  it  rests.  The  highly  civilized  man  does  not 
resist  a  tendency  which  becomes  a  positive  compulsion 
in  the  select  few.  To-day  advanced  and  strictly  ration- 
alistic thinkers  compel  themselves  to  resist  their  ratural 
tendency  to  conform  to  the  logical  habit  of  seeking  for 
final  causes.    They  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that, 


214      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

since  this  final  cause  lies  outside  human  experience,  and 
beyond  its  comprehension,  reflection  upon  it  must  be 
fruitless.1  It  is,  moreover,  only  a  survival  of  an  old 
delusion  to  speak  of  the  final  cause  only  as  eluding  our 
intelligence ;  the  adjective  may  go :  the  first  and  nearest 
cause  of  phenomena  is  as  unattainable,  as  incompre- 
hensible, as  the  final.  Indeed,  as  I  said  above,  there  is 
only  one  cause,  at  once  the  first  and  the  last,  that  has 
operated  from  all  eternity,  and  will  operate  to  all  eter- 
nity. We  only  imagine  that  we  may  be  able  to  discover 
and  understand  a  first  cause  because  philosophers,  as 
well  as  uneducated,  home-taught  thinkers,  confuse  the 
cause  of  phenomena  and  their  concrete  concomitants. 
We  are  satisfied  with  saying,  "  The  reason  why  this 
glass  breaks  is  that  it  was  pushed  off  the  table  " ;  "  The 
reason  why  that  dog  howls  is  that  someone  trod  on  his 
tail."  But  in  such  a  statement  we  fail  to  distinguish  the 
mere  succession  of  events  and  their  occasion  from  the 
reason  of  their  occurrence.  The  reason  why  the  glass 
breaks  is  not  the  push  which  sends  it  off  the  table,  but  the 
law  of  gravitation,  which  determines  its  movement  in 
space,  together  with  the  conditions  of  the  molecular 
composition  of  the  two  bodies — namely,  the  hardness 
of  the  ground  and  the  insufficient  resistance  of  the  glass. 
And  beyond  this  there  lies  the  further  question  of  the 
constitution  of  matter.  Thus  we  are,  all  unaware  of  it, 
confronted  with  the  riddle  of  the  universe,  and  unex- 
pectedly find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  that  final  cause 

1  Auguste  Comte,  "  Systeme  de  Politique  Positive,"  Paris,  1851,  vol. 
i.,  p.  134:  "Research  seeks  to  discover  the  how,  never  the  why;  to 
discover  laws,  not  causes.  .  .  .  The  word  '  cause '  must  be  banished 
from  the  vocabulary  of  true  philosophy." 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     215 

which  even  the  home-taught  thinker  sees  to  be  unat- 
tainable. It  is  the  same,  too,  with  the  howling  dog, 
which  raises  the  whole  question  of  life  and  sensation,  or 
with  any  phenomenon  whatever.  The  reasonable  course 
therefore  would  be  to  abandon  speculation  as  to  final 
causes.  That,  however,  is  now  perhaps  not  within  our 
power.  Certainly  it  was  not  within  the  power  of 
earlier  men,  who  had  not  learned  to  examine  the  con- 
tents of  their  consciousness  with  care  and  distinguish 
sharply  between  concepts.  They  could  not  escape  the 
compelling  idea  of  a  "  Why?  "  They  had  to  seek  for 
the  cause  of  things,  and  since  it  is  agonizing  to  leave  un- 
answered a  question  that  is  always  coming  up  and  al- 
ways present  to  the  consciousness,  the  answer  was  such  as 
the  stage  of  their  knowledge  permitted  them  to  find  or 
to  invent. 

The  readiest  explanation  was  that  known  as  the  hy- 
pothesis of  the  Demiurgos,  which  Plato  has  developed 
with  great  expenditure  of  rhetoric.  Primitive  man 
could  not  clothe  his  vague  ideas  in  the  polished  language 
of  the  Athenian  philosopher,  but  his  arguments  were 
much  the  same  as  Plato's.  When  he  saw  an  implement 
of  stone,  he  knew  that  someone  must  have  made  it,  even 
though  he  had  not  been  there  to  see  it  done.  Generaliz- 
ing this  theory,  he  deduced  from  it  that  all  that  exists 
must,  like  his  implement,  have  been  made  by  somebody. 
By  whom?  By  some  unknown  creator,  craftsman,  or 
artist — a  Demiurgos.  Plato  failed  to  see  the  fallacy  of 
this  generalization;  how  should  it  have  been  perceived 
by  primitive  man,  whose  unpractised  thought  generally 
proceeded  by  a  series  of  leaps?  He  did  not  see  the 
horns  of  this  dilemma — either  everything  that  exists 


216      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

must  have  a  creator,  a  Demiurgos,  in  which  case  the 
Demiurgos  must  have  one,  and  the  creator  of  the 
Demiurgos,  and  so  on  for  ever  in  an  endless  chain  too 
ludicrous  to  be  conceived;  or,  not  everything  that  exists 
must  have  a  creator — there  can  be  something  that  has 
existed  for  all  time,  uncreated.  In  this  case  the  assump- 
tion of  the  Demiurgos  is  unnecessary.  The  universe 
itself  may  be  the  eternal,  uncreated — an  idea  no  more 
and  no  less  impossible  than  that  of  an  eternal,  uncreated 
Demiurgos.  The  extraordinary  thing  is  that  Plato 
provides  his  Demiurgos  with  material  that  has  existed 
for  all  eternity,  of  which  to  make  the  world,  and  then 
deduces  from  the  existence  of  this  world,  that  he  has 
himself  declared  eternal,  the  necessity  for  a  creator,  al- 
though, by  his  own  assumption,  the  creator  need  create 
nothing,  merely  adapt  what  exists. 

Primitive  man  did  not  thus  criticize  his  own  effort  to 
understand  the  cause  of  the  world.  He  satisfied  his 
search  for  the  why  of  the  universe  by  the  answer:  "  The 
world  exists  because  a  master-craftsman  created  and 
maintains  it."  He  made  an  idea  of  this  creator  for 
himself.  As  a  rule  he  imagined  him  in  human  form, 
but  sometimes  as  a  huge  beast  before  whom  he  went  in 
fear.  The  greatness  of  the  works  of  the  unknown 
creator  proved  him  to  be  of  huge  strength  and  power. 
Man's  anthropomorphism  was  easily  satisfied  with  a 
world  creator  in  human  form;  his  wretched  conception 
of  the  Demiurgos  proves  the  poverty  of  his  imagination. 
He  simply  gave  it  the  attributes,  on  an  immensely  exag- 
gerated scale,  of  man,  of  terrifying  wild  beasts,  or 
astonishing  natural  phenomena.  The  chief  in  whose 
territory  he  dwelt  provided  him  with  his  type.     The 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     217 

features  of  the  Demiurgos  were  those  of  a  prehistoric 
ruler  and  conqueror.  He  was  stronger,  more  courage- 
ous, fiercer,  and  more  cruel  than  other  creatures.  He 
demanded  unconditional  obedience.  All  must  be  sub- 
servient to  his  will.  He  was  only  to  be  approached  with 
the  mien  of  abject  humility  proper  to  the  vanquished, 
trembling  for  his  life  and  suing  for  mercy,  hands  up- 
raised to  show  that  they  bore  no  weapons,  body  kneeling 
or  prone  upon  the  ground,  ready  for  the  lord  to  set  his 
foot  upon  the  neck  or  strike  it  with  the  deadly  stroke. 
He  was  jealous,  suspicious,  angry,  incalculably  moody, 
greedy,  and  vain.  To  keep  him  in  a  good  humour  it  was 
necessary  to  load  him  with  gifts,  and  offer  him  the  most 
cherished  treasure  one  possessed.  He  could  be  most 
effectually  propitiated  by  human  sacrifice.  Prayers,  en- 
treaties, or  grovelling  flattery  might  soften  his  wrath, 
and  he  was  never  weary  of  noisy  and  fulsome  praise. 
Barefaced  flattery,  unworthy  adulation,  and  slavish  sub- 
servience were  the  most  hopeful  means  of  turning  aside 
his  blood-thirsty  wrath,  and  even  of  obtaining  favour 
and  protection  against  enemies,  and  his  assistance  in  any 
plan  of  war,  plunder,  or  reprisal.  The  godheads  of  the 
earliest  mythology  preserve  the  traits  of  the  prehistoric 
and  primitive  chief.  When  we  have  studied  the  sacri- 
ficial rites,  the  incantations,  prayers,  hymns,  and  cere- 
monies of  religion,  we  have  as  complete  a  picture  of 
the  relations  between  our  remote  ancestors  and  their 
chiefs  as  if  we  had  seen  them  with  our  own  eyes.  One 
observation,  that  seems  strangely  enough  to  have 
escaped  the  sociologists,  should  be  made  at  this  point. 
The  traditional  ideas  of  the  creator  throw  upon  the 
dark  background  of  the  past  an  extraordinarily  vivid 


218      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

picture  of  the  primitive  warrior,  conqueror,  and  ex- 
ploiter of  the  weak.  They  do  more  than  that.  They 
cast  a  strong  light  on  the  primitive  constitution  of 
human  life,  and  afford  an  overwhelmingly  powerful 
witness  to  the  fact  that  men,  instead  of  originally  form- 
ing a  horde  of  equal  beings  with  equal  rights,  led  to 
battle  by  some  strong  man,  but  ruled  by  no  one,  must, 
as  far  back  as  the  memory  of  the  species  goes,  have  been 
unequal  in  might  and  right,  ordered  in  ranks,  and  con- 
trolled by  authority.  This  authority  may  have  been  at 
first  the  head  of  the  family.  Before  long  it  was  as- 
suredly the  violent,  plundering  conqueror  and  despot, 
who  subdued  to  his  service  all  he  could  reach  by  the 
might  of  his  arm  or  overcome  by  his  warriors.  His 
subjects  trembled  before  him  in  perpetual,  abject  fear 
of  death,  much  as  the  people  of  Dahomey  must  have 
done  before  their  king,  previous  to  the  French  conquest. 

How  could  men  who  lived  free  and  equal  in  hordes 
that  shifted  from  place  to  place  at  their  own  sweet  will 
ever  have  found  in  their  experience  the  idea  of  a  mighty 
God  whose  frequent  anger  had  to  be  propitiated  by  cur- 
rish fawning,  supplication,  flattery,  and  sacrifice,  who 
could  be  quieted  by  threats  and  circumvented  by  deceit? 
— an  idea  quite  natural  to  a  pack  of  slaves,  who  imag- 
ined their  God  in  the  image  of  the  despotic  ruler  who 
cracked  the  whip  above  their  heads. 

This  model  has  prevailed  down  to  the  present  day. 
Man  did  not  create  God,  to  use  Feuerbach's  well-known 
phrase,  in  his  own  image,  but  in  the  image  of  a  certain 
human  type,  the  chief  or  king.  He  always  believed  in 
a  monarchical  government  and  creation  of  the  world. 
The  development  of  the  idea  of  God  proceeded  along 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     219 

the  lines  of  the  development  of  monarchy.  The  canni- 
bal monster  of  prehistoric  and  primitive  times  gradually 
became  the  civilized  ruler.  Instead  of  butchering  slaves 
and  striking  off  heads  with  his  own  hands,  wading  in 
blood  and  claiming  every  woman  in  his  domain  for  his 
harem,  he  sets  before  himself  an  ideal  of  goodness  and 
wisdom,  recognizes  duties  to  his  subjects,  watches  over 
justice  and  order  within  his  territory,  and  finds  pleasure 
in  performing  the  office  of  a  natural  Providence  so  far 
as  to  bring  unlooked-for  happiness  into  the  lives  of 
individuals.  So  the  God  of  human  imagination  ceased 
tp  resemble  a  greedy,  cruel,  and  coarsely  sensual  negro 
chief,  and  gradually  became  an  enlightened  being,  all 
gentleness  and  love,  like  an  Augustus,  whom  the  Syrian 
Greeks  called  2,u>Tr)p,  the  Saviour;  a  Marcus  Aurelius, 
whose  stoicism  has  influenced  sixty  generations  of 
thoughtful  men,  and  influences  them  to-day;  an  Alfred, 
on  whom  love  and  veneration  conferred  the  name  of 
Great,  or  St.  Louis,  reverenced  as  the  embodiment  of 
justice.  The  world-ruler  was  surrounded,  on  the  model 
of  an  earthly  being,  by  a  court  of  nobles  and  worthies, 
the  archangels  and  saints,  and  a  bodyguard  of  angels. 
The  Greek  gods  carried  on  wars,  and  won  glorious  vic- 
tories over  rebellious  giants.  Later  religions  conceived 
of  neighbouring  rulers  and  rival  kings  carrying  on 
inherited  feuds  (Ahora  Mazda  and  Ahriman),  or 
rebels,  who  were  overthrown  and  condemned  to  eternal 
incarceration  in  subterranean  dungeons  (Lucifer).  The 
source  of  all  these  fantastic  images  was  the  same — the 
necessity  to  co-ordinate  and  explain  phenomena  in  a 
single  cause,  the  desire  to  know,  which  is  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation  on  the  intellectual  side.     The  idea 


220     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  God  is  the  earliest  answer  given  by  the  species,  with 
the  knowledge  then  at  its  disposal,  to  the  constant  ques- 
tion as  to  the  why  of  the  world  and  of  life,  and  it  is  the 
answer  that  the  majority  of  the  species  still  finds  satis- 
factory.1 

But  the  desire  to  know  is  not  the  sole  expression  of 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  There  is  another, 
stronger  and  more  immediate — the  desire  for  life,  the 
fierce,  almost  desperate,  clinging  to  existence.  This 
desire  for  life  is  the  second  psychological  root  of  reli- 
gious feeling.  Man  must  very  early  have  awakened  to 
the  aspect  of  life  that  presented  itself  to  the  Buddha 
Siddharta  in  the  well-known  encounters  on  his  walk 
through  the  gardens  of  Kapilavastu.  He  passed  in  turn 
a  broken  and  decrepit  old  man,  a  suffering  sick  man,  and 
a  funeral  procession.  His  fourth  encounter  is  not  rele- 
vant here.  He  recognized  the  eternal  enemies  that  for 
ever  threaten  and  finally  destroy  the  comfort,  happiness, 
and  life  of  man — age  and  its  infirmity,  disease,  and 
most  fearful  of  all,  death.  Man,  like  the  Sakya  Muni, 
has  always  been  troubled  by  these  enemies,  which  have 
caused  most  painful  reflections  in  thoughtful  minds. 

He  has  probably  submitted  with  least  resistance  to 
the  doom  of  growing  old.     It  comes  on  slowly,  almost 

1  Bcda  Vencrabilis  ("Historia  Ecclesiastica  Gentis  Anglorum,  book 
ii.,  chap,  xiii.)  gives  a  charming  concrete  example  of  the  desire  to  know 
in  man,  and  the  childish  credulity  with  which  any  would-be  explana- 
tion is  accepted.  Before  King  Edwin's  council  an  English  nobleman 
recommended  that  the  religion  brought  by  the  Papal  Legate  Paulinus 
should  be  accepted,  on  the  ground,  "  Here  below  the  life  of  man 
seems  tolerable,  but  of  what  comes  after  and  what  has  gone  before 
we  know  naught.  If  the  new  teaching  have  some  tidings  thereof 
to  give  us,  I  think  we  shall  do  right  to  accept  it." 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     221 

unperceived.  Since  the  decay  of  the  faculties  corre- 
sponds to  an  ebb  in  all  the  needs  and  desires  for  which 
they  are  necessary,  its  gradual  progress  is  not  vividly 
present  to  the  consciousness.  At  the  dawn  of  reflection, 
old  age  was  perceived  to  be  the  law  of  life,  subject  to  no 
exception.  Human  thought  is  habitually  satisfied  with 
things  as  it  has  always  known  them,  and  does  not  go 
further  to  ask  whether  they  must  always  be  so.  Never- 
theless, even  the  law  of  age  does  sometimes  meet  with  a 
dull  resistance,  especially  in  those  cases  where  any  feel- 
ing outlives  its  natural  means  of  satisfaction.  Man 
longs  for  eternal  youth.  He  can  find  no  more  wonderful 
and  enviable  attribute  with  which  to  endow  his  Gods. 
His  desires  are  revealed  by  the  fairy-tales  of  the  foun- 
tain of  Youth,  the  philosopher's  stone,  or  the  magic 
herbs  of  Medea — proof  of  the  pleasure  he  finds  in 
dreaming  of  delights  denied  to  him  by  nature. 

Of  sickness  he  was  much  more  impatient.  His  habit 
of  thought  led  him  to  see  an  analogy  between  his  bodily 
sufferings  and  the  wounds  and  bruises  that  he  got  in 
hunting  or  at  war.  He  knew  the  cause  of  these  injuries 
to  be  the  armed  foe  or  wild  beast,  and  imagined  a 
similar  cause  for  his  internal  and  cutaneous  diseases. 
They  must  be  the  effect  of  an  attack  from  some  enemy 
or  evil  being  who  was  not  human.  The  enemy  who 
brought  such  infirmities  upon  him  was  the  more  uncanny 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  invisible  to  his  prey,  who 
could  form  no  idea  of  his  nature,  his  weapons,  nor  the 
time  and  place  of  his  attack.  This  extraordinarily  cun- 
ning foe  inspired  him,  because  unknown,  with  a  far 
greater  terror  than  the  warrior  he  met  in  the  open  field 
or  the  wild  beast  that  fell  upon  him  with  teeth  and 


222      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

claws,  horns  and  hooves.  It  naturally  occurred  to  him 
to  try  to  pacify  the  enemy,  against  whom  he  could  not 
defend  himself,  by  presents,  sacrifices,  and  prayers.  The 
suggestion  of  wise  men,  or  those  whom  he  thought  to 
be  wise,  that  he  should  oppose  the  unseen  foe  by  a 
stronger  foe  of  the  same  order,  accorded  well  with  his 
habits  of  thought.  He  tried  then  to  secure  this  all-wise, 
invisible  ally  and  protector,  and  imagined  everything 
that  was  incomprehensible,  mysterious,  and  dark,  such 
as  magical  incantations,  extraordinary  rites,  and  every 
kind  of  hocus-pocus,  to  be  the  appropriate  means  to  that 
end. 

Before  death  man  was  helpless.  His  reason  could 
not  comprehend  that  he  must  cease  to  be  and  disappear, 
leaving  no  trace.  His  feelings  struggled  feverishly 
against  such  a  doom.  Although  constantly  faced  with 
the  spectacle  of  death  and  corruption,  he  persuaded  him- 
self that  this  condition  did  not  imply  an  end  of  existence. 
He  concluded,  from  the  extremely  superficial  resem- 
blance between  the  sleeping  and  the  dead,  that  death 
was  a  kind  of  sleep  from  which  there  was  an  awakening, 
only  that  the  sleep  was  deeper  and  the  awakening  longer 
in  coming.  His  dream-life,  in  which  he  saw  those  who 
had  died,  mingled  and  spoke  with  them,  suggested  to 
him  that  the  dead  continued  to  exist,  returning  at  night 
to  visit  the  living,  while  during  the  day  they  resided  in 
some  place  unknown.  He  pondered  how  the  dead  man 
whom  he  had  seen  buried,  decomposed  or  consumed  by 
fire,  came  to  visit  him  in  his  dreams,  sound  and  whole, 
even  younger  and  more  comely  than  in  life.  Naturally 
enough  he  invented  the  notion  of  a  second  being,  in 
which  the  principle  of  life  itself  resided,  which  inhabited 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     223 

the  human  body,  could  live  on  in  separation  from  it,  and 
appear  to  the  living  man  in  dreams.  Further  develop- 
ments of  this  same  invention  are  the  Egyptian  idea  of  a 
spiritual  double,  reappearing  in  the  astral  body  of  con- 
temporary occultism;  the  Hellenistic  conception  of  a 
shadowy  existence  in  the  under-world;  the  belief  in  the 
migratory  soul,  perpetually  reincarnated,  which  is  found 
among  many  primitive  peoples,  and  is  widespread, 
especially  in  India — which  occurs  even  in  Schelling,  and 
is  found  where  one  is  almost  horrified  to  discover  it,  in 
a  thinker  generally  so  lucid  as  Lessing  ("The  Educa- 
tion of  the  Human  Race  ")  ;  and,  indeed,  the  general 
conception  of  the  existence  of  the  soul,  of  immortality, 
of  Heaven,  and  of  Hell.  No  single  fact  supporting  any 
of  these  hypotheses — the  existence  of  the  soul,  its  im- 
mortality, its  sojourn  in  a  supra-mundane  realm — has 
ever  been  cited  in  a  material  or  intellectual  form 
capable  of  analysis  by  a  thinker  worthy  of  being  called 
one.  Nevertheless,  the  majority  go  on  persuading  each 
other  without  any  thought  of  proof.  They  are  satisfied 
with  assurances  and  assertions.  The  argument  con- 
stantly reiterated  by  theologians,  and  even  by  philoso- 
phers,1 is  enough  for  them.  "  We  have  such  an  im- 
perious desire  for  immortality,  and  so  strong  an  inward 
conviction  of  existence  of  our  spiritual  personality  after 
death,  that  we  cannot  possibly  be  deceived  about 
it." 

Were  anyone  to  say,  "  I  am  quite  certain  that  I  shall 
one  day  be  rich ;  I  have  an  intense  desire  for  it,  and  a 

1  Popular  philosophers,  it  is  true.  The  argument  quoted  above 
appears  in  M.  Mendlessohn's  "  Phasdo ;  or,  The  Immortality  of  the 
Soul." 


224      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

secret  voice  whispers  to  me  that  my  desire  will  be  real- 
ized," he  would  be  laughed  at,  and  his  conviction  cer- 
tainly not  credited.  Yet  this  secret  voice,  this  intense 
desire,  are  considered  sufficient  security  for  personal 
immortality.  That  is  to  say,  we  wish  to  be  convinced. 
We  are  angry  with  a  level-headed  critic  who  tries  to 
dissipate  the  dream  of  immortality.  All  our  dread  of 
death  makes  us  cling  to  the  idea  of  escaping  it  by  some 
fabulous  privilege.  Yet,  all  the  time  these  pleasant 
and  comforting  ideas  are  being  built  up  by  our  eager 
desire  for  continued  existence,  and  co-ordinated  into  a 
system  that  formally  satisfies  the  logical  demand  of  our 
consciousness  up  to  a  certain  point,  the  life-instinct  re- 
mains constantly  aware  that  all  these  dreams  of  a  soul, 
immortality,  and  the  hereafter,  are  but  cobwebs.  Their 
specious  defiance  of  death  falls  to  pieces  before  its  un- 
conquerable horror  of  it.  The  idea  of  immortality  may 
have  made  death  easier  to  many  who  found  comfort  in 
it.  But  the  thought  of  his  own  death  fills  the  most 
convinced  believer  with  a  terror  that  is  meaningless  if 
the  grave  be  really  the  door  into  a  new,  eternal  life,  no 
longer  shadowed  by  the  fear  of  death. 

The  desire  to  know,  appearing  in  the  consciousness  as 
a  perpetual  question,  "  Why?  "  produced  the  invention 
of  the  Demiurgos  as  an  adequate  living  cause  of  all 
phenomena,  while  the  life-instinct,  unable  to  do  away 
with  the  inexorable  fact  of  death,  has  invented  personal 
immortality.  These  two  systems  of  ideas,  centering  in 
the  belief  in  God  and  immortality,  necessarily  coalesced. 
Alike  divorced  from  perception  and  observation,  resting 
upon  no  basis  of  fact,  including  no  element  of  experi- 
ence, pure  products  of  the  imagination,  stimulated  by 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     225 

an  emotional  desire,  they  take  their  rise  from  and  de- 
velop in  the  same  circles  of  thought  and  feeling,  and 
inevitably  combine. 

The  way  in  which  men  picture  God  and  their  own 
immortal  essence  depends  upon  and  varies  with  the 
general  knowledge  and  views  of  the  time.  In  pre-civ- 
ilized  times  God  was  conceived  as  a  violent  tribal  chief- 
tain; later  He  became  a  constitutional  ruler,  a  judge,  a 
loving  father.  The  definite  form  and  outline  of  the  pic- 
ture became  blurred;  its  colour  faded  away,  and  the 
whole  melted  to  a  shadowy  image  compatible  with  any 
view,  even  with  that  of  science.  Spinoza  regarded  God, 
whom  he  stripped  of  personality  and  its  most  import- 
ant attribute,  consciousness,  as  synonymous  with  the 
universe;  Schelling  made  Him  an  Absolute,  which  con- 
veyed no  idea  at  all  to  himself  or  anyone  else;  others 
excluded  Him  from  the  world,  and  left  Him  only  an 
incomprehensible  existence  outside  of  Being  1  in  some 
sphere  of  pure  spirituality  (whatever  that  may  be), 
entirely  disconnected  from  the  sphere  of  phenomena. 
Finally,  the  use  of  a  jargon,  remote  alike  from  thought 
and  from  reality,  gave  currency  to  the  phrase,  so  often 
repeated  in  the  last  decades,  that  faith  has  nothing  to  do 
with  knowledge,  that  they  occupy  distinct  provinces  in 
the  realm  of  thought.  Certainly  a  knowledge  that  rests 
upon  the  verifiable  basis  of  experience  has  nothing  to 
do  with  a  faith  whose  content,  even  when  dignified  by 
the  name  of  "  inward  events,"  is  really  from  beginning 
to  end  nothing  but  subjective  invention.     The  formula 

1  Frederic  de  Rougemont,  "  Les  Deux  Cites,"  two  volumes,  Paris, 
1874,  vol.  i.,  p.  i :  "  Eternity  dwells  outside  of  time  and  of  space. 
Pure   spirit   exists   nowhere.     Immutable,    it  is   always   the   same." 


226      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

is,  however,  inadmissible,  becauses  it  suggests  that  faith 
and  knowledge,  though  different  from  and  independent 
of  each  other,  possess  equal  value.  To  assume  this  is  to 
put  dream,  chimera,  and  delirium  on  the  same  level  as 
the  results  of  strict  observation  and  the  evidence  ob- 
tained from  the  senses  after  careful  examination  and 
experiment.  Where  that  is  done,  the  desire  for  knowl- 
edge is  still  instinctive  and  obscure.  It  has  not  sub- 
mitted to  criticism,  tested  itself  by  actual  facts,  and 
risen  to  a  desire  for  truth. 

The  process  which  has  refined  and  spiritualized  faith 
in  a  Demiurgos  almost  out  of  existence  was  extended  to 
the  idea  of  the  soul  and  its  immortality.  The  ideas  are 
naturally  connected.  From  the  very  first  the  assump- 
tion of  the  presence  in  the  body  of  another  substance, 
not  identical  with  it,  but  of  a  finer  essence,  suggested 
that  this  substance  survived  the  death  of  the  body. 
Originally  this  idea  was  crude  and  childish,  like  the 
belief  in  God.  Primitive  man  thought  of  his  soul  as  the 
shadow  of  his  body;  it  was  uncanny  like  anything  vague 
and  unknown.  He  imagined  it  possessed  of  super- 
human power,  but  also  full  of  malice,  cruelty,  and  all 
other  evil  qualities.  As  a  rule,  he  had  little  doubt  of  its 
intention  of  torturing  the  living  and  doing  them  all 
possible  harm.  Only  where  ancestor  worship  was  in- 
troduced was  the  reasonable  conclusion  drawn  that 
parents  and  ancestors  at  least  had  no  reason  to  be  evilly 
disposed  towards  their  children  and  descendants,  so  long 
as  they  paid  them  due  honour  and  allowed  them  to  want 
for  nothing;  that  their  souls,  instead  of  being  fearful, 
might  be  looked  to  for  kindness  and  protection.  But 
apart  from  this  special  case,  the  departed  spirit  was 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     227 

either,  as  the  Greeks  imagined,  a  poor,  pitiable  shadow 
that  dragged  out  a  joyless  existence  in  the  chill  dark- 
ness, glad  of  a  drink  of  warm  blood,  and  powerless  to 
help  itself  or  the  living;  or,  as  all  races  that  live  in  a 
state  of  nature  believe  to  this  day,  and  most  races  doubt- 
less believed  before  they  were  civilized,  a  wild  and  fear- 
some ghost,  happily  only  permitted  to  rage  at  night  and 
in  certain  spots,  against  which  there  were  various 
means  of  defence.  The  spirits  could  be  propitiated,  like 
their  more  powerful  and  terrifying  God,  by  sacrifices, 
secret  words,  magic  formulae  and  incantations,  and  kept 
at  bay  and  baffled  in  the  execution  of  their  fell  intents 
by  rites  and  amulets,  whose  symbolism  lies  outside  the 
limits  of  this  work. 

This  imagery  presented  no  difficulty  so  long  as  the 
earth  was  conceived  of  as  a  hollow  orb,  and  the  heavens 
as  a  crystal  roof  above  it.  There  was  convenient  room 
for  an  under  and  upper  world,  peopled  respectively  with 
ghosts  and  demons,  Gods,  angels,  and  saints.  Con- 
fusion arose,  however,  when  the  Copernican  theory 
taught  that  the  world  was  a  ball,  rotating  on  its  axis, 
and  swinging  free  in  space.  The  fancied  Paradise  and 
Hell  had  to  be  removed.  The  under-world,  instead  of 
being  under  the  earth,  was  placed  in  its  unknown  in- 
terior; the  upper  world  was  transferred  from  the  un- 
imaginable ether  above  the  visible  arch  of  heaven  to 
other  heavenly  bodies  remote  from  earth — the  sun,  and 
stars.  This  idea,  far  from  being  confined  to  the  senti- 
mentality of  ignorant  people,  is  found  in  Schelling 
among  others.  There  are  professional  exponents  of  the 
worship  of  words  who  take  his  confused  and  meaning- 
less verbosity  for  philosophy,  even  for  science !    Accord- 


228     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ing  to  a  more  subtle  interpretation,  which  skilfully 
eliminated  from  the  idea  any  kernel  of  meaning,  the 
soul,  having  no  extension,  is  an  effluence  from  God,  into 
whom  it  is  resumed  on  the  death  of  the  body.  By 
means  of  this  senseless  formula  the  need  of  any  place 
for  its  abode  is  got  rid  of.  But  even  thus  sublimated, 
the  soul  retains  the  trace  of  its  descent  from  the  crude 
spook  of  primitive  man,  and  its  origin  in  the  repugnance 
of  the  consciousness  to  its  own  annihilation. 

Such  is  the  natural  history  of  religion,  apart  from  the 
mysticism  in  which  the  whole  of  this  important  province 
of  biology  and  psychology  has  been  smothered.  It 
arose  from  the  desire  for  knowledge,  which  is  a  form  of 
the  instinct  for  survival,  and  immediately  from  the 
instinct  for  survival  itself.1  These  two  roots  are  firmly 
fixed  in  consciousness  and  subconsciousness.  Man  will 
always  desire  knowledge.  His  thirst  for  it  can  only 
cease  with  the  realization  of  one  of  two  highly  improb- 
able  hypotheses — omniscience,   or   dull   resignation   to 

1  Lucretius's  famous  statement,  quoted  by  Feuerbach,  "  Primu9  in 
orbe  Deos  tiraor  fecit " — "  It  was  fear  that  first  made  Gods  upon 
the  earth " — is  highly  superficial,  and  fails  to  reach  the  psychic 
sources  of  the  phenomenon  described.  The  whole  of  the  admired 
Fifth  Book  of  the  "  De  Rerum  Natura "  is  merely  the  expansion  of 
this  notion  that  belief  in  Gods  arose  from  the  terror  aroused  by 
the  vast  spectacle  of  nature  ("  Unde  etiam  nunc  est  mortalibus 
insitus  horror,"  etc.  ..."  cui  non  animus  f  ormidine  divum — Con- 
trahitur,  cui  non  conrepunt  membra  pavore — Fulminis  horribili 
quum  plaga  torrida  tellus — Contremunt,"  etc.).  But  this  fear  is  only 
a  special  case  of  the  general  law  of  the  life  force  expressed  negatively 
in  the  fear  of  death.  Thunder  and  lightning  did  not  suggest  that 
Gods  existed:  it  was  the  fear  of  death  which  was  brought  before  man 
by  the  thunder  and  lightning,  and  threatened  him  in  them,  that  sug- 
gested such  thoughts.  Moreover,  the  fear  of  death  is  but  one  source 
of  faith.     It  also  arose  from  curiosity  to  know  the  reason  of  things. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     229 

ignorance.  He  will,  moreover,  always  cling  to  life. 
Apart  from  the  rational  recognition  of  the  worth  of 
existence  resulting  from  reflection,  the  life-process  dif- 
fuses through  all  the  cells  of  his  being  a  constant  sense 
of  pleasure,  which  he  could  not  renounce  or  even  con- 
ceive of  renouncing  without  a  kind  of  horror.  In  old 
age  the  pleasure  of  existence  declines  as  the  life-process 
in  the  cells  loses  its  strength  and  regularity.  When 
it  is  no  longer  the  dominant  note  in  the  kinaesthe- 
sis  of  the  body,  the  desire  for  life  is  gradually  extin- 
guished, and  gives  way  to  an  indifference  that  be- 
comes a  need  for  repose  and  even  a  positive  desire  for 
death. 

The  permanent  pleasure  of  existence  may  again  be 
overthrown  or  extinguished  by  the  bodily  and  mental 
distress  caused  by  sickness  or  moral  disaster,  and  in  that 
case  desire  is  transferred  from  the  preservation  to  the 
annihilation  of  life.  These  exceptions,  however,  apart, 
the  desire  for  life  is  always  present,  and  the  idea  that  the 
extinction  of  personality  can  neither  be  avoided  nor  de- 
layed is  intolerable  alike  to  consciousness  and  feeling. 
Therefore,  man  will  always  try  to  explain  phenomena, 
reflect  on  the  cause,  or  at  least  on  the  connection  and 
order  of  events,  revel  in  the  joys  of  existence,  and 
shudder  before  the  horror  of  death;  for  the  religious 
feeling  within  him  inexorably  forces  these  questions 
upon  him  and  he  must  listen  to  his  own  soul.  That  his 
strongest  emotions  are  associated  with  it  is  obvious  from 
its  very  nature.  Strong  emotions  are  aroused  by  any- 
thing that  affects  the  deep  roots  of  life,  whence  both 
consciousness  and  personality  grow  and  draw  their 
strength.     The  laws  of  association,  moreover,  explain 


230     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

how  an  extraordinary  emotion,  even  if  it  originate  in 
some  other  source,  will  rouse  the  basic  emotion  that 
vibrates  between  life  and  death,  and  gather  force  from 
it.  Therefore  a  religious  note  sounds  in  the  deeper 
notes  of  great  love,  profound  passion,  desperate  fear, 
and  the  mighty  impression  produced  by  the  beautiful 
and  the  sublime;  and  since  thought  is  influenced  by 
sentiments,  even  to  some  extent  polarized  by  them,  it  is 
clear  that  any  religious  excitement  that  penetrates  the 
soul  with  a  sense  of  the  mystery  of  life  and  its  im- 
pending doom  will  occupy  the  consciousness  with  this 
question  of  eternity,  and  cause  the  ideas  to  group  them- 
selves into  fantastic  inventions,  suppositions,  surmises, 
dreams,  or  ordered  systems.  Religious  emotion  leads 
the  thoughts  away  from  reality  and  experience  into  a 
world  of  dreams.  There  is  something  of  a  religious 
character  in  any  dream  that  draws  the  consciousness 
away  from  the  region  of  natural  percepts  and  judgments 
to  wander  over  the  boundless  ocean  of  imagination.  It 
is  very  pronounced  when  the  brain  is  engaged  in  artistic 
invention  or  any  of  those  aesthetic  functions  that  are 
biologically  connected  with  the  emotions  of  sex.  Joy, 
wonder,  excitement,  agitation,  longing,  devotion — all 
these  spring  from  the  same  subconscious  root  as  the 
religious  emotion.  When  the  religious  mood  is  height- 
ened, as  it  may  be,  to  enthusiasm,  ecstasy,  or  transfigura- 
tion, the  different  elements  are  almost  indistinguishably 
fused. 

Religious  feeling  arose  in  man  when  his  intellectual 
development  led  him  to  ask  the  question  "  Why?  "  and 
forced  the  fact  of  death  upon  him.  It  is  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  it  will  be  extinguished  when  man  finally 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     231 

realizes  that  it  is  quite  useless  to  seek  to  know  the  causes 
of  phenomena,  and  directs  his  desire  for  knowledge  to 
other  attainable  ends,  and  when  his  instinctive  repug- 
nance to  the  dissolution  of  his  personality  subsides,  and 
he  learns  to  think  with  indifference  of  his  inevitable 
end.  Even  then,  in  all  probability,  the  old  longings  and 
anxieties  of  primitive  man  will  break  atavistically  upon 
the  reason  at  its  task,  like  snatches  of  some  distant 
melody  that  will  seem  beautiful  and  lofty  and  worthy  of 
being  fostered  by  art.  This  notion  was  expressed  by 
Dr.  F.  Strauss  ("The  Old  Faith  and  the  New:  a 
Confession"),  by  M.  Guyau  ("DTrreligion  de  l'Ave- 
nir  "),  and  by  myself  ("  Conventional  Lies  of  Our  Civ- 
ilization ").  We  found  ourselves  in  agreement  in  hold- 
ing that  in  the  civilization  of  the  future,  art  would  take 
the  place  of  faith,  and  concerts,  plays,  exhibitions,  and 
aesthetic  celebrations  of  every  sort,  that  of  the  Church 
service.  Certainly  the  ideas  originally  called  up  by  the 
religious  sentiment  will  lose  their  connection  with  it,  and 
gradually  fade  away. 

A  sentiment  so  strong,  deep,  and  general  as  the  re- 
ligious naturally  could  not  fail  to  influence  the  mutual 
relations  of  mankind;  but  its  influence  has  been  enor- 
mously exaggerated.  Dozens  of  would-be  philosophic 
historians  have,  with  an  air  of  great  wisdom,  repeated 
Goethe's  very  arbitrary  statement  that  all  wars  have 
been  wars  of  religion.  Schelling  saw  in  religion  the 
real  content  of  history.  Bunsen  regarded  it  as  its 
earliest  and  strongest  motive  force.  All  the  facts  are 
against  them.  It  was  not  from  religious  motives  that 
the  Romans  first  attacked  and  defeated  their  neighbours 
in  Central  Italy,  then  conquered  Italy,  and  finally  the 


232      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

whole  world,  but  from  the  desire  for  profit  and  mastery 
— i.e.,  from  the  parasitic  impulse. 

Religious  motives  are  far  to  seek  in  the  migrations  by 
which  the  European  States  were  formed.  The  Mongol 
invasion  in  the  Middle  Ages  certainly  had  nothing  to  do 
with  religion,  and  only  far-fetched  sophistry  of  the  most 
specious  kind  could  discover  any  religious  motives  in  the 
revolutionary  and  Napoleonic  wars.  There  are  so  many 
political,  economic,  and  social  causes  to  be  taken  into 
consideration  even  in  those  wars  that  appear  to  have 
been  fought  on  religious  grounds,  such  as  the  seven 
hundred  years'  struggle  of  the  Iberians,  Romans,  and 
Goths  against  the  Moors  in  Spain,  the  Crusades,  and 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  that  a  closer  examination  dimin- 
ishes the  part  played  by  religion  even  there.  The  real 
truth  is  that  any  emotion  common  to  men  draws  them 
together,  and  the  religious  emotion,  being  the  strongest, 
does  this  most  of  all.  Those  who  have  laughed  or 
cried  together  are  no  longer  strangers.  How  much  more 
powerful,  then,  than  the  superficial  emotions  of  a  chance 
and  transitory  feeling  of  mirth  is  the  bond  created  by 
similar  views  of  the  world  and  of  life,  here  and  here- 
after, and  above  all,  by  a  worship  of  the  same  God  or 
Gods!  Not  only  primitive  man,  but  the  cultivated 
believer  of  to-day,  feels  that  here  is  something  more 
than  a  mere  abstract  philosophy.  It  has  a  practical  sig- 
nificance, as  securing  the  favour  of  supernatural  powers. 
And  if  the  godhead  be  an  all-powerful  conqueror  and 
king,  whose  enmity  is  deadly,  his  good-will  an  un- 
equalled protection  and  security,  one  must  feel  it  to  be 
of  the  greatest  importance  that  he  should  be  universally 
worshipped,  and  regard  oneself  as  personally  endan- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     233 

gered  by  anyone  whose  refusal  to  do  honour  to  the  na- 
tional divinity  may  bring  down  his  rage  upon  the  people 
as  a  whole.  The  self-righteousness  natural  to  man,  and 
his  instinctive  aversion  to  anything  different  from  him- 
self, subversive  of  his  habits,  or  opposed,  in  a  manner 
that  he  feels  to  be  provocative,  to  his  mode  of  thought 
and  feeling,  afford  sufficient  explanation  of  the  fanatical 
hatred  of  different  beliefs — a  hatred,  however,  that  has 
more  often  caused  the  persecution  of  minorities  at 
home  than  war  abroad. 

No  one  who  wished  to  gain  ascendency  or  influence 
over  mankind  could  overlook  or  neglect  a  feeling  so 
universal,  mighty,  and  deep-rooted  as  religion.  There 
soon  arose  a  class,  differentiated  from  the  multitude, 
which  claimed  to  know  more  than  they  did  of  super- 
natural powers,  to  stand  in  a  closer  relation  to  them, 
and  to  possess  a  greater  influence  over  them.  It  as- 
sumed a  monopoly  of  the  highly  advantageous  position 
of  go-between  for  the  gifts  that  accompanied  the  sacri- 
fices and  prayers  of  the  faithful,  and  the  favours 
accorded  them  in  return  by  Gods,  ghosts,  and  spirits. 
These  mediators,  who  lived  by  faith,  and  claimed  for 
themselves  the  possession  of  supernatural  knowledge 
and  power,  formed  either  a  class  recruited  from  indi- 
viduals, like  the  Griots  among  the  West  African 
negroes,  or  the  medicine-men  among  the  North  Ameri- 
can Indians,  or  a  caste.  This  caste  might  be,  like  the 
Indian  Brahmans,  descended  from  conquerors,  who  had 
won  by  the  sword  the  privileges  they  now  tried  to  main- 
tain, without  exertion  or  danger,  by  means  of  the 
prestige  of  terrifying  legends;  or  like  the  Priests  and 
Levites,  when  the  Jews  were  an  independent  people, 


234     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

members  of  a  more  intellectual  class,  who  knew  how  to 
assume  the  role  of  the  favourites,  confidants,  and  minis- 
ters of  supernatural  powers. 

This  priestly  parasitism  was  not  always  the  cool  and 
calculated  deceit  that  it  appears  on  a  shallow  interpreta- 
tion. Actions  that  are  rooted  in  the  subconscious  mind 
of  man,  and  extend  back  to  its  prehistoric  and  primitive 
past,  are  rarely  entirely  self-conscious.  The  latter-day 
priest,  face  to  face  with  an  old,  often  an  immemorial 
institution,  a  Church  on  firm  foundations,  with  dogmas 
anc]  rites  crystallized  by  long  tradition,  does  not  trouble 
himself  about  its  origin,  authenticity,  or  ultimate  mean- 
ing. Possibly  he  believes  the  doctrines  he  has  learnt  and 
has  to  teach.  To  him  the  priesthood  is  a  dignity,  an 
office,  like  any  other.  It  seems  to  him  right  and  fitting 
that  it  should  afford  him  a  regular  income  and  certain 
moral  advantages.  But  his  enjoyment  is  disturbed  by 
no  reflection,  save  perhaps  for  an  occasional  qualm  as  to 
whether  he  really  gives  believers  a  fair  return  for  their 
money.  Once  a  career  is  regularly  recognized  by  so- 
ciety and  the  State,  people  enter  upon  it  without  any 
higher  consideration  than  that  of  personal  advance- 
ment. They  feel  that  they  have  done  .their  duty  if  they 
fulfil  the  tasks  prescribed,  and  attain  the  external 
positions  to  which  it  leads — preferments,  dignities,  and 
benefices,  etc.  So,  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  man  to  be 
a  priest  to-day,  and  yet  a  thoroughly  honest,  upright 
man.  He  may  never  call  in  question  the  character  of 
his  profession,  or  see  that  it  is  an  exploitation  of  the  ab- 
surd ideas  of  mankind  in  general.  It  is  possible  that 
the  Roman  augurs  could  not  look  at  one  another  with- 
out   laughing.      Nevertheless,    there   must   have    been 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     235 

plenty  of  haruspices  who  conscientiously  interpreted 
the  liver  of  the  sacrificial  beast  as  they  had  learned  to 
do  from  the  templum,  whence  the  priesthood  acquired 
their  instruction  in  the  significance  of  animal  entrails. 
An  astrologer  who  had  drawn  a  perfectly  regular  horo- 
scope— no  easy  matter,  but  one  involving  considerable 
astronomical  knowledge — was  certainly  on  good  terms 
with  his  conscience. 

The  government  could  not  afford  to  allow  religion  to 
be  outside  its  control.  The  advantage,  even  the  neces- 
sity, of  establishing  relations  that  would  place  it  in  the 
"service  of  the  State  was  soon  perceived.  It  was  easily 
done.  Since  men  imagined  God  as  a  king,  the  king 
could  play  the  God.  The  great  Asiatic  despots  and  the 
Egyptian  kings  assumed  god-like  honours;  Cassarean 
Rome  permitted  altars  to  the  ruler  to  be  set  up  in  the 
temples.  When  the  ruler  was  not  God  Himself  he  was, 
like  Alexander  the  Great,  the  Son  of  God,  and  of  god- 
like descent,  like  the  Japanese  dynasty  or  the  old  Norse 
and  pagan  Germanic  ruling  houses,  which  claimed  to 
spring  from  Thor  or  Odin ;  or  at  least  ordained  by  God, 
as  is  maintained  to-day  by  all  rulers  by  the  grace  of 
God.  The  State  was  created  and  is  maintained  by  the 
power  of  the  ruler  and  the  fear  of  the  ruled.  The  ruler 
soon  saw  how  great  an  economy  of  strength  would  be 
involved  if  the  fear  aroused  by  his  weapons  could  be 
strengthened  by  the  fear  of  supernatural  powers,  and 
he  tended  this  fear  as  carefully  as  the  other.  His  war- 
riors and  attendants  were  adorned  with  magnificent 
garments,  decorations,  and  symbols,  so  that  their  as- 
pect might  strike  terror  to  the  hearts  of  his  subjects, 
and  fill  them  with  wonderment,  respect,  and  fear.    And 


236     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  impression  of  his  power  was  further  heightened  by 
the  magic  of  supernatural  descent  and  relationship. 
The  crown  became  more  impressive  when  surrounded 
by  a  halo.  Faith  became  a  pillar  of  the  throne,  and  so 
long  as  the  king  assured  the  priest  of  his  privileges,  he 
was  his  trusty  bodyguard. 

The  subject  learned  in  church  the  theoretical  doctrine 
of  obedience  that  was  practically  enforced  by  the  armed 
agents  of  the  royal  will.  The  advantage  for  the  ruler 
was  so  great  that  he  maintained  the  Church  as  a  public 
institution  only  second  in  importance  to  the  army.  Any 
attack  upon  the  Church  was  regarded  as  an  attack  upon 
the  ruler,  who  put  at  its  disposal  full  powers  of  perse- 
cuting and  exterminating  critics,  enemies,  or  recusants. 
The  entire  intellectual  discipline  of  the  people  was 
handed  over  to  the  Church,  whose  doctrines  were  as- 
signed priority  in  the  education  of  the  young  and  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  people  as  a  whole:  and  this 
although  its  unproved  assumptions  formed  the  sharpest 
possible  contrast  to  all  the  rest  of  the  teaching  of  the 
schools  which  the  State  endowed.  "The  faith  of  the 
people  must  be  maintained,"  is  merely  another  way  of 
saying,  "  The  submission  of  the  people  to  their  rulers, 
and  their  readiness  to  pay  dues  and  taxes,  must  be  main- 
tained." 

The  ruler  provided  for  the  protection  of  his  own 
interests  by  using  the  authority  of  the  State  directly  and 
indirectly  to  secure  that  faith,  piety,  and  resignation  to 
God  should  be  esteemed  and  inculcated  in  schools,  from 
the  pulpit,  in  literature  and  art,  and  stamped  with  gen- 
eral official  recognition,  and  to  impose  a  moral  value  for 
these  qualities  upon  public  opinion.     No  State  in  histori- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     237 

cal  times  has  ever  anywhere  failed  to  avail  itself  of  the 
religious  feeling  and  faith  to  strengthen  and  support 
its  power.  The  first  instance  of  separation  of  State 
and  Church  is  that  of  the  French  Republic.  There  is 
no  other  example  of  such  a  thing.  There  have  been 
States  that  recognized  no  official  religion,  and  per- 
mitted their  citizens  the  free  exercise  of  any,  but  no- 
where in  the  past,  or  with  the  exception  of  France  in 
the  present,  can  a  State  be  found  which  has  expressly 
severed  itself  from  the  visionary  ideas  of  faith,  does  not 
use  it  in  its  ordinances  for  the  spread  and  maintenance 
of  its  power  or  the  furtherance  of  its  own  ends,  or 
assign  it  any  value.  The  French  innovation  is  a  bold 
attempt  to  build  the  State  on  reason  and  power  alone, 
in  the  belief  that  the  citizens,  seeing  the  necessity  of 
State  regulation,  and  rationally  accepting  force  as  the 
means  for  carrying  it  out,  will  obey  the  laws  and  accede 
to  the  demands  of  the  State.  The  boldness  of  the  at- 
tempt is  its  newness.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  Jews,  and  perhaps  of  the  Tibetans,  the 
State,  even  when  ruling  with  the  help  of  faith,  has 
never  relied  upon  religion  alone.  It  has  never  trusted  to 
the  fear  of  God  to  induce  the  subject  to  pay  his  taxes, 
shed  his  blood,  or  obey  his  superiors.  The  Church  has 
always  had  the  canteen  behind  it,  the  priest  the  gen- 
darme to  enforce  his  sermons  with  punishment,  im- 
prisonment, and  the  gallows.  The  real  difference 
between  the  worldly  and  the  sacerdotal  State  is  much 
less  than  the  theoretical.  But  it  is  significant  that  one 
State  should  shake  off  an  immemorial  and  still  con- 
venient fiction,  should  refuse  to  embellish  practical 
violence    by    a    theory    of    Divine    ordinance,    should 


238      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

decline  a  supernatural  origin  for  purely  utilitarian 
human  arrangements,  and  refrain  from  uplifted  eyes 
and  unctuous  tones  when  making  demands  of  its  sub- 
jects. 

As  civilization  advanced,  the  religious  feeling,  repre- 
senting as  it  does  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  in  its 
twofold  aspect,  the  desire  for  knowledge  and  the  fear  of 
death,  naturally  produced  various  types  of  positive 
religion,  from  crude  fetish  worship  to  the  refined  hair- 
splitting of  "enlightened  "  monotheism,  as  reduced  to  a 
philosophic  system.  It  is  superfluous  to  ask  whether  a 
phenomenon  that  seems  an  inevitable  incident  of  de- 
velopment is  useful.1  Nevertheless,  since  the  age  of 
enlightenment  the  question  has  often  been  raised 
whether  religion  is  useful  to  man,  and  answered  as  a 
rule  in  the  affirmative,  even  by  the  emancipated.  They 
credit  religion,  if  not  with  creating  civilization,  at  least 
with  hastening  its  advance.  They  allow  that  it  has 
developed  man's  moral  nature,  subdued  his  ferocity, 
taught  him  gentleness  and  love  for  his  fellow-men,  and 
comforted  him  in  distress.2  These  are  very  generous 
admissions.  Not  one  of  them  can  be  regarded  as 
proved.  Civilization  has  not  developed  thanks  to  re- 
ligion, but  in  spite  of  it.     Religion  has  not  exercised  a 

1  Voltaire  ("  Essai  sur  les  Moeurs  et  PEsprit  des  Nations,"  part  ii., 
p.  205)  answers  the  question  in  a  decided  negative:  "Religion  is  the 
chief  cause  of  all  the  sorrows  of  humanity.  Everywhere  useless,  it 
has  only  served  to  drive  men  to  evil,  and  plunge  them  in  brutal  mis- 
ery. ...  It  makes  of  history  ...  an  immense  tableau  of  human 
follies." 

2J.  J.  Rousseau,  "  Emile,"  L,  iv.:  "[Christianity]  has  certainly 
made  it  [government]  less  blood-thirsty.  This  can  be  proved  by 
comparing  it  with   ancient   [pre-Christian]   governments." 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     239 

favourable  influence  upon  it,  but  it  upon  religion. 
There  is  an  amazing  want  of  logic  in  attributing  the 
amelioration  of- manners  to  religion.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  this  amelioration  exercised  a  softening  and  human- 
izing effect  upon  religion,  which  was  at  first  bloody  and 
fearsome  wherever  it  was  found. 

The  first  harmful  effect  of  religion  was  that  it  satis- 
fied man's  desire  for  knowledge  by  means  of  a  perfectly 
arbitrary  invention.  The  average  man  is  so  constituted 
that  any  assertion  confidently  made  and  stubbornly 
maintained  has  an  immediate  effect,  and  carries  more 
.complete  conviction  than  a  careful  and  sober  proof  to 
which  he  is  not  able  to  give  the  sustained  attention  it 
requires.  To  man's  inquiry  as  to  the  cause  of  things, 
this  reply  was  given  by  those  who  invented  the  religious 
fable  and  its  later  professional  exponents,  the  priests: 
"The  world  was  created  by  the  Gods,  who  can  free 
you  from  suffering  and  death;  your  souls  are  immortal," 
etc.;  and  the  timid  questioners  believed  it,  as  children 
believe  the  answer  their  mother  gives  them,  in  a  tone 
of  conviction,  when  they  ask  whence  they  came :  "  The 
stork  brought  ye."  Man  asks  for  the  bread  of  knowl- 
edge ;  religion  gives  him  the  stone  of  a  fairy-tale,  which, 
though  indigestible,  fills  the  stomach,  gives  a  false 
satiety,  and  arrests  the  wholesome  hunger  that  impelled 
them  to  seek  salutary  food.  It  was  easier  to  give  man  a 
fictitious  than  a  true  answer  to  the  questions  about 
eternity  that  troubled  him,  but  the  effect  was  fatal,  in 
so  far  as  it  led  him  to  imagine  that  he  had  the  knowl- 
edge he  sought,  and  so  arrested  his  natural  impulse  to 
win,  through  effort  and  mistakes,  a  real  insight  into  the 
connection  of  phenomena.    It  is  no  reproach  to  religion 


240     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

that  it  invented  fabulous  explanations  of  the  world.  It 
arose  inevitably  at  the  stage  when  the  mind  of  man  was 
capable  of  the  play  of  imagination,  but  incapable  of 
serious  observation,  critical  examination,  or  rational 
interpretation.  At  the  same  time,  it  cannot  be  said  to 
have  assisted  his  intellectual  advance.  It  stereotyped 
a  childish  phase  because  of  the  practical  interests 
bound  up  in  it — the  interests  of  the  priesthood,  of  the 
government,  of  all  those  who  profited  by  a  public  sys- 
tem in  which  the  majority  are  induced  to  submit  to 
exploitation  with  patience  by  the  belief  in  a  visionary 
hereafter  that  promises  a  choice  between  dazzling 
honours  and  recompenses  or  punishment  and  tortures. 
There  have  always  been  individuals  who  saw  that  re- 
ligion was  a  mere  fiction  without  the  smallest  kernel  of 
truth.  They  could  and  should  have  taught  the  less 
instructed  majority  to  see  the  senselessness  of  their 
faith.  They  might  have  hastened  the  process  of  prog- 
ress and  anticipated  the  dawn  of  science  by  centuries. 
Religion  closed  their  lips,  and  prevented  them  from 
rousing  the  many  from  their  stupid  dreams.  Religion 
has  employed  every  means  for  the  destruction  of  its 
critics,  from  the  poisoned  cup  forced  on  Socrates  for 
trumped-up  reasons  of  State,  that  were  really  reasons 
of  religion,  to  the  stake  at  which  Giordano  Bruno  and 
Michael  Servetus  were  burned.  And  yet  it  has  been  a 
factor  in  intellectual  progress!  Such  an  assertion  is 
incomprehensible. 

The  eulogists  of  religion  gladly  turn  from  the  point 
of  view  of  human  development  as  a  whole,  in  which 
they  are  not  at  home,  to  record  its  services  in  narrower 
fields.     In  Ireland  and  Germany  it  was  the  monks  who 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     241 

cleared  the  primeval  forests  and  turned  up  the  soil  with 
the  plough;  in  France  it  was  they  who  repeopled  the 
wilderness  after  the  migrations  had  swept  over  them. 
All  over  Western  and  Central  Europe  the  monasteries 
were  the  first  seats  of  peaceful  labour  and  teaching  set 
up  in  the  wilderness.  Down  to  modern  times  it  has  been 
the  clergy  who  founded  and  maintained  schools  and 
cared  for  books.  All  this  is  true.  But  the  medieval 
monks  cultivated  the  soil  for  their  own  use,  or  to  pro- 
vide themselves  with  satisfaction,  power,  and  riches. 
Religion  was  their  excuse,  the  claim  upon  which  the 
possession  of  property  was  based;  it  had  no  more  to  do 
with  their  civilizing  activities  than  with  the  productive 
settlements  founded  by  the  emigrants  who  cross  the  seas 
to-day.  Thus,  the  schools  founded  by  the  Princes  and 
Orders  of  the  Church  served  (primarily)  the  purposes 
of  the  Church.  Primarily  trained  a  priesthood,  and,  in 
the  second  place,  implanted  in  the  minds  of  the  youth 
of  the  ruling  classes  the  views  and  opinions  useful  to 
the  Church.  In  these  schools  the  teaching  of  the  formal 
elements — reading,  writing,  and  grammar — and  of  the 
subjects  that  made  up  the  trivium  1  and  the  quadrivium 
of  the  medieval  curriculum,  was  used  as  a  means  of 
instilling  the  most  irrational  stories  and  dreams,  and 
served,  instead  of  wakening  the  intellect,  to  lull  it  to 
sleep.  There  is  no  doubt  that  men's  minds  would  have 
been  clearer  and  more  intelligent,  their  desire  for  knowl- 
edge and  their  powers  of  discovery  greater,  had  they 
then,  instead  of  learning  what  was  taught  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical schools  and  by  the  ecclesiastical  teachers,  grown 

1  The     trivium     included     grammar,     dialectic     and     rhetoric;     the 
quadrivium  arithmetic,  geometry,   astronomy  and  music. 


242      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

up  without  any  instruction  at  all,  like  the  Redskins  be- 
fore the  whites  settled  in  America. 

Religion  is  said  to  have  subdued  the  ferocity  of  man, 
and  taught  him  gentleness  and  the  love  of  his  fellow- 
creatures.  This  claim  is  as  unfounded  as  that  of  ad- 
vancing education  and  civilization.  That  all  primitive 
religions  demanded  human  sacrifices  can  be  established 
with  practical  certainty  from  the  cultus  rites  surviving 
in  historical  times.  At  the  exodus  from  Egypt  the  Jews 
were  enjoined  by  their  religion  to  destroy  the  whole 
population  of  Canaan  root  and  branch,  with  their  cattle, 
and  their  houses,  and  their  goods.  Islam  bade  the 
faithful  wage  the  holy  war  on  the  races  within  their 
reach,  and  offer  them  a  choice  between  conversion  and 
slaughter.  Without  pity,  often  with  the  most  appalling 
cruelty,  did  the  Christians  persecute  the  Arians,  Albi- 
genses,  Waldenses,  and  the  other  medieval  heretics — 
Jews,  and  the  Protestants  of  the  Netherlands.  When 
the  French  Huguenots  got  the  upper  hand,  they  did  not 
fail  to  take  a  bloody  retribution  on  the  Catholics. 
What  trace  of  the  softening  influence  of  religion  is 
there  in  this  long  course  of  butchery  and  slaughter,  ex- 
tending over  thousands  of  years? 

It  has  provided  a  basis  and  sanction  for  morality — 
that  is  true.  The  religious  teacher  or  believer  has  no 
difficulty  in  answering  the  question:  "What  is  good, 
what  evil?  Why  should  I  do  good,  and  avoid  evil? 
What  will  happen  to  me  if  I  do  evil,  and  neglect 
good?"  He  answers  with  unction:  "Good  is  that 
which  is  commanded  by  God  or  the  Gods,  and  pleasing 
to  them;  bad  is  what  they  hate  and  forbid.  It  is  my 
part  to  make  known  the  will  of  God  or  of  the  Gods. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     243 

Thou  must  do  good  in  order  to  win  the  favour  of  the 
Gods,  and  avoid  evil  to  escape  their  displeasure.  If 
thou  hast  sinned,  thou  wilt  be  punished  on  earth  or  here- 
after; if  thou  art  virtuous,  the  Gods  will  reward  thee 
now  and  for  evermore."  The  average  man,  with  no 
strong  passions,  has  no  doubt  often  been  governed  by 
such  phrases  so  long  as  he  believed  them.  But  with  the 
awakening  of  his  critical  faculties  he  turned  aside,  with 
a  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  from  the  childish  promises  of 
religious  morality,  and  acted  according  to  the  dictates 
of  his  own  habits,  passions,  or  views ;  as,  indeed,  he  had 
.always  done,  even  when  he  believed,  in  any  case  where 
his  own  inclinations  and  desires  were  stronger  than  the 
restraints  inspired  by  the  idea  of  the  anger  and  threats 
of  the  Gods.  Thus  the  moral  effect  of  religion  was 
non-existent,  not  only,  as  is  plain  without  proof,  for  the 
unbeliever,  but  even  for  the  believer.  Crimes  were 
never  more  frequent  or  horrible  than  in  those  dark 
epochs  of  antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages  when  men 
believed  in  the  immediate  vengeance  of  the  Gods,  as 
displayed  in  the  cases  of  Niobe  the  Atreidae,  in  the 
Erinyes  and  in  the  eternal  torments  of  Hell.  Evil-doers 
thought  nothing  of  selling  their  soul  to  the  devil,  or  of 
securing  God's  indulgence  by  prayers  and  vows.  Rob- 
bers and  murderers  to  this  day  sometimes  purchase 
candles  and  offerings  before  committing  a  crime,  pray 
in  church  for  its  success,  and  give  thanks  for  a  lucky 
conclusion  to  the  supernatural  powers  to  which  they 
imagine  it  to  be  due. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  what  is  really  an  effect  is  always 
spoken  of  as  a  cause.  It  was  not  religion  that  furthered 
education,  softened  manners,  and  gradually  formed  a 


244      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

moral  sense  in  man,  but  education  that  endeavoured  as 
it  progressed  to  introduce,  in  many  cases  with  pain  and 
difficulty,  some  degree  of  rationality  into  the  crude 
childishness  of  the  religious  legends.  The  softening  of 
manners  gradually  removed  the  cruelty  and  lust  of 
blood  originally  associated  with  religion.  Man's  moral 
aspirations  affected  his  visionary  faith,  and  impressed 
on  it  something  of  their  own  character. 

Human  development  is  determined  by  needs,  giving 
rise  to  observation,  and  through  it  to  knowledge.  The 
influence  of  knowledge  gradually  moulded  intellectual 
life,  and  modified  the  most  fixed  and  deeply-rooted 
habits.  At  the  same  time,  as  the  direct  outcome  of 
needs,  a  form  of  adaptation  is  going  on  alongside  of 
this,  but  for  the  most  part  automatic  and  subconscious 
— the  life  of  instinct.  The  lonely  wanderer  of  primitive 
times  was  only  attracted  to  his  fellow-men  by  desire, 
and  to  a  much  less  pronounced  degree  by  the  con- 
veniences of  habit.  Morality  he  neither  needed  nor 
possessed.  But  with  society  these  needs  arose.  If  he 
wished  to  live  on  tolerably  peaceful  terms  with  his 
neighbours,  and  avoid  continual  wrangles,  violence,  and 
danger  of  death,  or  at  least  of  expulsion,  he  had  to 
learn  reg?rd  for  others,  and  exercise  self-control,  even 
self-sacrifice,  in  order  to  make  himself  pleasing  to  them. 
This  habit  of  considering  the  effect  of  any  action  on 
others  was  the  empirical  origin  of  what  was  later  known 
as  morality.  It  is  therefore  an  immediate  product  of 
society,  and  the  consequence,  not  of  theoretical  reflec- 
tion, but  of  adaptation  to  the  conditions  of  a  common 
existence.  The  idea  ever  present  in  man's  conscious- 
ness, "What  will  the  others  say  to  this?"  became  the 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     245 

voice  of  conscience,  the  inward  reflection  of  public  opin- 
ion. The  relation  between  the  inward  monitor  and  the 
external  surroundings  that  it  interprets  became  gradu- 
ally obscured  until  conscience,  separated  from  the  dim 
social  conception  in  which  it  arose,  appears  finally  as  a 
normal  constituent  of  personality. 

The  most  characteristic  function  of  the  conscience  is 
to  check.  Its  action  is  negative ;  it  arrests  the  impulses. 
"  Do  it  not !  "  it  cries,  and  in  an  undertone,  often  in- 
audible: "  Society  would  be  against  you!  "  Conscience 
acts  positively  with  a  small  minority  of  people  of  lively 
imagination  and  delicate  sensibilities;  with  them  it  in- 
cites as  well  as  checking,  commands  as  well  as  forbid- 
ding. Instead  of  only  saying  "Do  it  not!  "  it  says, 
"  Do  it !  "  It  grows  out  of  a  mere  fear  of  wounding 
our  companions  into  an  active  desire  to  win  them  over, 
and  fill  them  with  joy,  love,  and  wonder.  Cold,  cautious 
consideration  for  others  becomes  a  warm  and  active 
love,  an  altruism  whose  psychic  root  is  the  capacity  to 
imagine  the  sufferings  of  another,  and  suffer  personally 
from  a  vivid  picture  of  distress.  Altruism,  therefore, 
is  protection  against  actual  pain;  conscientiousness  the 
idea  of  possible  discomfort,  and  a  protection  against 
potential  pain.  Only  in  the  few  does  the  development 
of  morality  thus  proceed  from  the  negative  to  the  posi- 
tive stage.  In  most  it  is  negative  at  best;  in  many  it  is 
distorted  or  entirely  wanting.  Persons  suffering  from 
hypertrophy  of  the  ego,  or  a  sense  of  power  which  is 
developed  to  excess,  have  no  consideration  for  others. 
They  consider  themselves  so  vastly  superior  that  the 
hate  or  enmity  of  others  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  On 
persons  of  violent   impulses   and  weak  mentality  the 


246      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

idea  that  they  will  rouse  others  against  them  has  abso- 
lutely no  effect  in  restraining  them  from  actions  that 
must  bring  them  into  collision.  Such  men  commit 
crimes  from  violence  or  weakness.  But  whether  you 
take  the  criminal,  the  man  who  keeps  on  the  right  side 
of  every  social  usage,  or  the  warm-hearted  altruist,  the 
things  he  does  and  the  things  he  leaves  undone  are  the 
outcome  of  a  perpetual  balancing  of  psychic  states,  of 
checks  against  impulses,  a  series  of  duels  between  or- 
ganic instincts  and  the  idea  of  society.  Convenient 
labour-saving  formulae  have  been  invented  for  this  idea. 
Regard  for  neighbours  is  expressed  in  the  ten  tables  of 
Moses,  in  the  Commandments  of  Manu,  later,  in  the 
legal  codes.  A  Divine  origin  has  been  assigned  to  the 
most  ancient  formulae,  as  to  everything  remote  and  im- 
memorial in  origin,  whether  it  be  an  invention  or  a  form 
of  social  institution.  Morality,  which  arose  out  of 
society,  was  referred  to  the  commandment  of  God. 
To  men's  superstitious  minds,  the  fact  that  their  actions 
were  seen  by  their  neighbours  suggested  that  they  were 
watched  over  by  supernatural  powers. 

It  is  possible,  but  not  certain,  that  moral  checks  may 
have  been  strengthened  by  the  absorption  of  mystical 
ideas,  and  the  wholesome  fear  of  the  gendarme  by  a 
belief  in  its  supernatural  origin.  Certain,  however,  it 
is  not.  The  state  of  morality  in  the  times  when  faith 
was  most  fervent  and  superstition  most  rampant  makes 
it  very  doubtful.  Anyhow,  morality  neither  needs  nor 
is  strengthened  by  a  religious  basis.  It  remains  the 
same  when  stripped  of  all  supersensual  attributes.  It 
arose  from  the  necessities  of  that  social  life  of  which  it 
is  the  condition,  and  it  will  last  so  long  as  men  live  in 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     247 

societies.  Faith  will  never  restrain  criminal  natures 
from  ill-doing;  society  has  always  had  to  protect  itself 
against  them  by  force,  and  will  always  have  to  do  so, 
whether  they  believe  or  no.  What  is  done  and  what  is 
left  undone  by  the  average  man  of  negative  morality  is 
determined,  quite  apart  from  the  question  of  his  belief 
or  unbelief,  by  considerations  of  public  opinion,  law, 
and  custom.  And  the  positive  morality  of  the  altruistic 
minority  springs  from  pity,  from  a  heightened  sensi- 
bility, not  from  the  dogmatic  precepts  that  must  be,  for 
.them,  even  were  their  own  organization  different  from 
what  it  is,  but  a  dead  letter.  Religion  has  never  had 
any  influence  on  the  origin  and  development  of  morals 
any  more  than  on  their  active  exercise.  It  has  never 
done  anything  more  than  incorporate  in  its  system  the 
principles  arrived  at  by  morality  through  the  operation 
of  the  forces  that  brought  it  into  being,  and  strengthen 
that  system  by  expressing  these  principles  in  the  form 
of  dogmas. 

Religion  no  doubt  has  brought  comfort  to  many. 
That  this  is  so  is  not,  however,  at  all  to  its  credit.  The 
practical  utility  of  untruth  is  a  cynical  defence  that  all 
liars  bring  forward.  No  doubt  the  assurance  of  im- 
mortality robs  the  idea  of  death  of  its  terrors.  The 
promise  of  future  reunion  helps  the  mother  to  bear  the 
loss  of  her  child;  the  thought  that  eternal  justice  will  be 
dealt  out  to  good  and  evil  deeds  pours  balsam  in  the 
wounds  of  the  weak,  down-trodden,  and  ill-used  who 
have  succumbed  before  the  pride  of  the  mighty.  But 
the  means  by  which  these  tortured  spirits  are  soothed 
are  unhealthy  and  immoral  in  the  extreme — invented 
tales   and  arbitrary   assertions   which  cannot   stand  a 


248      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

moment's  critical  examination.  The  merit  that  belongs 
to  the  consolation  of  religion  must  be  granted  to  every 
superstition — the  amulet  that  averts  the  evil  eye,  spells, 
the  interpretation  of  cards  and  dreams,  the  raising  of 
spirits.  All  this  hocus-pocus  has  lightened  dark  hours 
for  millions  who  believed  in  it,  given  them  confidence 
and  self-reliance,  lifted  heavy  burdens  from  their  souls, 
and  reconciled  them  to  the  hardness  of  their  lot.  More- 
over, physical  sedatives,  like  opium,  morphia,  and 
alcohol,  must  be  assigned  an  equal  value  with  religion. 
They,  too,  console;  they,  too,  bring  temporary  oblivion 
of  care  and  suffering;  they,  too,  give  an  artificial  sense 
of  pleasure.  And  if  it  be  at  the  price  of  health,  the 
same  holds  true  of  religion  when  it  takes  the  form  of 
mortification  of  the  flesh  and  self-inflicted  tortures. 
The  ancients,  recognizing  this,  regarded  intoxication  as 
a  blessing  for  which  they  rendered  peculiar  thanks  to 
the  Gods.1 

Not  one  of  the  services  that  religion  claims  to  have 
rendered  to  man  can  be  substantiated.  It  has  retarded, 
not  advanced,  civilization.  It  has  injured  knowledge. 
It  has  had  no  share  in  the  softening  of  manners.  It 
did  not  create  morality;  it  has  appropriated  without 
elevating  it:.  Its  powers  of  consolation  are  confined  to 
individuals  in  whom  the  sense  of  actuality  is  deadened  or 

1  Frederic  de  Rougemont,  "  Les  deux  cites:  la  philosophic  de  l'histoire 
aux  differents  ages  de  l'humanite,"  Paris,  1878,  vol.  i.,  p.  187: 
"  Dionysius  comforts  mortals  in  all  their  sorrows.  The  son  of 
Semele  puts  an  end  to  the  profound  misery  of  humanity  (Penthos)  by 
giving  men  knowledge  of  his  vine.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
Greeks  believed  that  God  himself  had  given  them  wine  that  they 
might  forget  their  pain.  They  looked  upon  intoxication  as  a  sacred, 
divine  ecstasy." 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ROOTS  OF  RELIGION     249 

undeveloped.  Everywhere  it  is  but  an  epiphenomenon 
of  that  universal  development  upon  which  it  has  had 
either  no  effect  or  a  detrimental  one.  Development 
goes  on  as  the  outcome  of  increasing  knowledge  and 
more  delicate  adaptation  to  the  conditions  imposed 
upon  human  existence  by  nature  and  society,  and  re- 
ligion, with  its  ideas,  dogmas,  systems,  and  cults,  fol- 
lows in  its  train.  Religion  never  voluntarily  changes  its 
doctrines.  It  only  does  so  when  those  who  believe 
threaten  to  desert  it,  because  it  is  plainly  contradicted 
by  common  knowledge.  Thus  religion,  despite  its  re- 
sistance, is  slowly  driven  on  by  the  general  course  of 
intellectual  development,  which  it  in  vain  endeavours 
to  arrest. 

Since  man  became  capable  of  abstract  thought  he  has 
been  tormented  by  the  riddle  of  eternity.  He  has 
always  found  the  thought  of  death,  the  complete  de- 
struction of  his  personality,  intolerable.  He  has  always 
been  crushed  by  the  feeling  of  his  nothingness  in  the 
midst  of  the  vastness  of  the  universe,  his  helplessness  in 
face  of  the  powers  of  nature,  which  go  on  their  way 
without  regarding  him  or  troubling  about  him  at  all. 
The  invention  of  religion  was  the  simplest  and  least 
troublesome  way  of  providing  an  answer  to  the  ques- 
tions that  tortured  him,  protection  against  death,  a  less 
humiliating  position  in  the  universe,  a  support  against 
the  cruelty  of  nature,  a  link  with  its  terrifying  powers. 
The  need  which  gave  birth  to  religion  still  exists,  and 
will  exist,  in  all  probability,  as  long  as  men  think  and 
feel.  But  it  cannot  always  be  satisfied  with  fables  and 
visions.  So  much  is  certain,  Jhowever  difficult  it  be  as 
yet  to  form  any  clear  idea  of  any  other  means  by  which 


250     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  growing  intelligence  of  average  humanity,  the  scales 
once  fallen  from  its  eyes,  can  satisfy  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  in  its  twofold  aspect — the  desire  for  knowl- 
edge and  the  fear  of  death.  An  attempt  to  do  so  will, 
however,  be  made  in  a  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  OF  HISTORY 

Popular  charts  of  the  sky,  that  combine  bodies  im- 
measurably distant  and  entirely  unconnected  with  each 
other  in  a  single  star,  under  a  single  name,  may  be 
picturesque;  they  do  not  advance  the  knowledge  of  the 
universe  or  of  the  laws  of  astronomy.  In  the  same  way 
the  spectacle  of  human  existence  on  the  earth  is  not 
illuminated  by  projecting  into  it  an  arbitrary  system  of 
phantoms,  and  persuading  oneself  that  they  represent 
the  life  of  the  species,  not  the  reflection  of  one's  own 
imagination.  The  dreams  of  a  deductive  philosophy  of 
history  do  not  forward  our  knowledge  of  events  by  one 
hair's-breadth.  To  forget  that  the  words  used, 
"  humanity,"  "  society,"  "  nation,"  are  but  convenient 
ways  of  expressing  abstract  conceptions  and  vague 
generalizations  of  a  comprehensive  kind,  is  to  get  out 
of  touch  with  reality,  and  prevent  oneself  from  seeing 
or  comprehending  it,  because  to  do  thus  is  to  set  up 
between  it  and  oneself  an  anthropomorphic  image  of 
one's  own  creation — a  man  of  straw.  The  only  reality 
is  the  individual  who  lives,  acts,  and  suffers.  In  him 
alone  the  events  of  history  have  an  existence,  even  the 
mass  movements  in  which  a  bird's-eye  view  cannot 
distinguish  individual  action  or  bearing.  He  plays 
all  the  parts  in  the  drama  of  history,  from  the  hero  to 
the  walking  gentleman.     An  accurate  idea  of  the  inner 

251 


252      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

structure  of  the  historical  life  of  mankind  as  a  whole 
can  only  be  obtained  by  a  study  of  individual  charac- 
teristics, of  thought  and  reactions — in  a  word,  of 
individual  biology  and  psychology.1  Medicine  could 
really  know  nothing  of  sickness  as  long  as  the  abstract 
concept,  sickness — in  which  a  mass  of  concrete  phenom- 
ena and  conscious  states  was  included — was  regarded 
as  a  material  thing,  although  it  might  conceal  its 
ignorance  by  juggling  with  all  sorts  of  portentous  and 
unmeaning  words  like  "  genius  morbi,"  "  dyscrasia," 
etc.  Real  insight  was  first  acquired  when  the  cell,  the 
primary  constituent  of  the  organism,  was  recognized  as 
the  seat  of  the  life-process,  and  its  normal  course  and 
deviations  from  that  norm  studied  there.  Individual 
psychology  is  to  history  what  the  pathology  of  the  cell 
is  to  medicine.  Even  this  is  an  excessive  concession  to 
the  analogic  habit  of  thought;  the  independence  of  the 
individual  within  the  people  and  within  humanity  is 
far  greater  than  of  the  cell  within  the  organism. 
Goethe's  phrase  expresses  the  right  method: 

"  Wouldst  draw  strength  from  the  whole? 
See  in  smallest  part  the  perfect  soul." 

All  individual  members  of  the  species  have  certain 
fundamental  characteristics.    Feeling,  thought,  will,  and 

1  Paul  Lacombe,  "  De  l'histoire  considered  comme  science,"  Paris, 
1894,  P-  52:  "The  primitive  causes  of  history  are  the  persistent  mo- 
tives of  man  and  the  permanent  habits  of  his  mind."  Joh.  Fr.  Her- 
bart,  "Collected  Works"  (edited  by  G.  Hartenstein),  passim  (vol. 
v.,  pp.  160  et  seq.;  vol.  viii.,  pp.  101  et  seq.,  etc.).  shows  that  the 
analysis  of  the  life  of  the  individual  soul  is  the  basis  of  historical 
science.  Cousin  says  concisely:  "The  science  of  history  is  really 
psychological."  Fontana  and  Ferguson,  among  others,  are  of  the  same 
opinion. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  253 

action  proceed  in  the  same  manner  in  almost  all  indi- 
viduals—up to  a  certain  point  in  all  without  exception. 
This  facilitates  the  study  of  human  psychology  by 
simplifying  its  objects,  but  does  not  remove  the  necessity 
of  studying  them  in  the  individual.  He  may  be  selected 
at  will  from  the  crowd,  but  he  must  be  a  concrete  in- 
dividual, not  an  abstraction.  Positive  results  acquired 
from  a  particular  living  being  may  be  cautiously  general- 
ized, without  any  great  danger  of  their  being  inappli- 
cable to  the  species  as  a  whole.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  attention  be  diverted  from  the  individual,  and  cast 
down  from  some  remote  height  upon  the  seething  mass 
in  which  personal  physiognomies  are  no  longer  dis- 
tinguishable, the  only  portrait  of  an  individual  that 
could  be  drawn  from  such  an  impressionist  view,  if  I 
may  put  it  so,  would  be  a  fancy  composition  based  on 
preconceived  ideas — an  ideal  being  that  might  represent 
a  wish,  but  would  certainly  not  correspond  to  any  human 
being  of  flesh  and  blood.  It  is  obvious  that  the  his- 
torian's humanity,  composed  of  such  beings,  must  be 
wholly  unreal. 

Man  shares  with  all  other  living  things  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation.  This  makes  it  necessary  and  pos- 
sible for  him  to  adapt  himself,  actively  or  passively,  to 
given  conditions  of  existence — passively  by  organic  re- 
sistance to  injurious  circumstances,  actively  by  trying  to 
escape  from  them  or  to  alter  them  and  render  them 
favourable.  Passive  adaptation  came  first.  It  is  a 
chemical  and  mechanical  process.  It  is  the  work  of  the 
vegetative  organs.  If  they  refuse,  the  individual 
perishes.  Every  individual  that  survives  proves,  by 
his  very  existence,  that  he  has  been  able  to  maintain 


254     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

himself  against  all  the  forces  incessantly  at  work  for  his 
destruction.  He  is  heir  to  all  the  capacities,  forms, 
and  inward  arrangements  acquired  by  a  series  of  an- 
cestors in  the  truceless  struggle  for  existence.  Proof 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  organic  effort  involved  even 
in  passive  adaptation,  and  of  the  profound  changes 
in  the  organism  that  it  can  produce,  is  afforded  by  the 
waxen  covering  of  the  acid-proof  bacilli;  the  arrange- 
ments possessed  by  Alpine  plants  to  protect  them  against 
cold  and  want  of  water,  by  desert  plants  against 
drought;  the  way  in  which  fish,  whose  watery  home  is 
liable  to  be  periodically  dried  up,  breathe  alternatively 
through  lungs  or  gills;  and  the  hibernation  of  those 
warm-blooded  animals  who  have  regularly  to  go  for 
months  without  food.  This  great  work,  productive  of 
the  most  decisive  consequences,  was  proceeding  through- 
out the  organs  and  tissues  of  the  living  body  before  the 
smallest  ray  of  common  consciousness  arose.  After 
the  development  of  that  consciousness  it  ceased,  and 
plays  no  further  part. 

Active  adaptation  appeared  much  later  than  passive. 
Instead  of  being  a  purely  biochemical,  biomechanical 
function,  the  independent  response  of  cells,  tissues, 
organs  to  external  stimuli,  it  is  a  unified  co-operation  of 
all  the  organs  and  the  whole  system  in  carrying  out  a 
plan  developed  in  the  consciousness,  and  present  to  it  as 
an  idea,  before  it  can  be  translated  into  act  by  nerves 
and  muscles.  This  higher,  more  developed,  and  in- 
direct form  of  adaptation  premises  the  existence  of  con- 
sciousness, able,  by  means  of  its  fundamental  attribute, 
memory,  to  work  out  ideas,  to  arrange  them  in  order, 
to   associate   them   with  other  subconscious   ideas   re- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  255 

sembling  or  related  to  them  in  space  and  time,  or  as 
belonging  to  the  same  object,  and  to  draw  conclusions 
and  form  judgments  from  them.  A  description  of 
psychology  would  be  out  of  place  here.  It  must  suffice 
to  recall  its  main  points. 

Consciousness  is  the  first  fact  of  psychology.  It  is  a 
datum  that  cannot  be  explained.  It  perceives  the  im- 
pressions conveyed  to  it  by  the  sensory  nerves.  From 
these  perceptions  it  composes  an  image  of  the  causes  of 
these  impressions  of  the  sensory  nerves,  as  far  as  they 
are  known  by  experience  and  constant  examination  or 
can  be  guessed  from  analogy,  and  this  image  is  an  idea. 

By  the  juxtaposition  and  combination  of  ideas  the 
consciousness  acquires  a  view  of  the  conditions  or  events 
of  the  external  world,  whether  present,  past,  or  future. 
This  view  is  a  judgment.  The  exactitude  with  which 
the  ideas  of  which  the  judgment  is  composed  correspond 
to  the  perceptions,  and  the  delicacy  with  which  the  per- 
ceptions repeat  the  sense  impressions,  determines  the 
accuracy  of  the  judgment,  the  degree  of  definiteness  and 
truth  with  which  it  reflects  an  actual  or  potential  reality 
— a  condition  or  process  that  is,  was,  or  under  certain 
hypotheses  could  be. 

When  the  judgment  includes  ideas  that  personally 
affect  the  judge,  in  which  he  is  himself  actively  or 
passively  concerned,  these  ideas  arouse  more  or  less 
powerful  feelings,  and  set  up  certain  muscular  move- 
ments, or  at  least,  foreshadow  them,  that  is  to  say, 
they  rouse  the  activity  of  the  will.  Will  is  a  short  and 
conveniently  simple  description  of  a  very  complicated 
psychic  process,  whose  main  features  are  as  follows: 
Some  external   sense  stimulus — a   perception   of  some 


256     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

kind,  or  an  inner  organic  need — hunger,  thirst,  desire, 
fatigue,  or  discomfort — calls  ideas  into  consciousness. 
If  the  idea  stands  alone,  or  is  from  the  first  of  such 
intensity  that  no  others  can  form  themselves  beside  it, 
it  excites  the  motor  centres,  the  muscles  become  active, 
and  the  organism  carries  out  an  act  which,  under  the 
given  conditions,  corresponds  to  the  stimulus  or  satisfies 
the  need — that  is,  a  serviceable  act.  Muscular  activity 
when  accompanied  by  no  idea  is  reflex.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  consciousness  has  previous  knowledge  of  the 
muscular  act,  forms  an  image  of  it  and  of  its  purpose 
before  it  is  realized,  it  feels  it  to  be  volitional — an  act 
of  will.  But  in  most  cases  the  idea  either  does  not 
stand  alone,  or  does  not  prevail  immediately  on  its 
appearance.  Several  ideas  present  themselves  at  once, 
and  each  tries  to  crowd  out  and  suppress  the  other,  to 
occupy  consciousness  and  initiate  muscular  movement 
by  itself.  In  the  contest  victory  rests  with  the  idea 
supported  by  the  strongest  organic  impulses,  desires,  and 
inclinations,  by  the  expectation  of  the  most  alluring 
pleasure  and  the  apprehension  of  the  most  dreaded 
pains.  It  drives  the  others  from  the  field,  excites  the 
motor  centres,  and  causes  appropriate  actions.  In  such 
a  case  the  consciousness  is  sensible  of  a  psychic  effort, 
a  contest  of  will,  and  a  victory  of  will  over  resistance. 
Will  is  then,  in  the  last  resort,  the  liberation  of  co- 
ordinated, purposive,  muscular  movements  by  the  in- 
fluence of  an  idea,  or  the  prevention  of  such  an  influence 
by  means  of  an  opposing  idea,  which  suppresses  it — 
that  is,  by  an  inhibition  or  check. 

One  condition  of  the  regular  operation  of  the  con- 
sciousness is  attention — that  is,  such  an  adjustment  of 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  257 

the  psychic  apparatus  that  all  the  sense  impressions 
perceived,  and  all  the  ideas  brought  up  from  the  sub- 
consciousness, serve  the  one  end  of  giving  the  greatest 
possible  intensity  to  the  particular  complex  of  ideas  at 
that  moment  dominating  the  consciousness,  and  secure 
the  duration  of  that  complex  by  ignoring — that  is,  pas- 
sively resisting — all  foreign  conceptions,  ideas,  and  recol- 
lections. But  for  attention  consciousness  would  be 
given  up  to  inconsequence  and  reverie;  ideas  would 
never  be  interpreted  into  clear,  sharply-outlined  images, 
and  could  not  maintain  themselves  or  issue  in  systematic 
movements — that  is,  in  acts  of  will. 

Attention  may  be  natural  or  artificial.  It  is  natural 
when  the  psychic  apparatus  is  adjusted  in  immediate 
response  to  some  organic  impulse.  Under  the  impulse 
of  its  desire  for  prey  the  cat  watches  the  mouse-hole. 
All  its  senses  are  concentrated  on  its  purpose.  When 
it  sees  the  unsuspecting  mouse  venturing  forth,  it  is 
blind  to  all  else.  Attention  is  artificial  when  the  psychic 
apparatus  is  not  adjusted  to  an  immediate  organic  need, 
but  to  an  idea  of  some  satisfaction  desired  or  pain  to 
be  avoided,  of  other  than  a  directly  organic  kind.  In 
spite  of  his  repugnance,  the  schoolboy  forces  himself 
to  learn  grammatical  rules  by  heart,  and  suppresses  the 
ideas  of  pleasant  loafing,  because  the  idea  of  the  un- 
pleasantness of  failing  in  his  examination  so  regulates 
his  psychic  adjustment  that,  for  the  moment,  the  gram- 
matical rules  have  sole  possession  of  his  consciousness. 
The  man  of  science,  whose  gaze  is  riveted  on  his  micro- 
scope and  the  images  which  it  reveals,  has  his  senses 
and  his  consciousness  preserved  from  distraction  from 
the  object  of  his  observation  directly  through  his  scien- 


258      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tific  curiosity,  and  indirectly  through  the  idea  of  the 
pleasure  of  acquiring  new  knowledge. 

A  diseased  form  of  attention  is  mono-i deism,  when 
the  consciousness  is  permanently  possessed  by  one  ex- 
clusive idea,  which  all  perceptions  and  associations  only 
serve  to  feed  and  strengthen.  When  other  ideas  suc- 
ceed in  entering  the  consciousness,  without  driving  this 
central  idea  out,  so  that  the  consciousness  is  perceiving 
sense  impressions,  turning  them  into  ideas,  then  form- 
ing judgments,  and  so  acts  of  will,  while  all  the  time 
the  original  idea  remains  like  a  foreign  body,  unmoved 
in  the  midst  of  the  burning  tide  of  ideas  that  stream 
continually  through  the  consciousness,  the  state  is  de- 
scribed as  obsession.  But  if  the  attention  of  the  con- 
sciousness, instead  of  being  open  to  perceptions  conveyed 
to  it  by  the  sensory  nerves,  is  claimed  by  inner  organic 
processes  accompanied  by  sensations  of  intense  pleasure, 
then  the  consciousness  becomes  inaccessible  to  impres- 
sions from  the  outer  world,  all  its  ideas  are  referred 
only  to  sensations  of  pleasure,  and  it  falls  into  a  state 
known  as  ecstasy. 

When  the  attention  is  thoroughly  aroused,  the  con- 
sciousness recognizes  the  ideas  that  have  by  experience 
been  proved  to  be  incompatible,  and  avoids  uniting 
ideas  that  are  mutually  exclusive  to  form  one  judgment. 
It  is  sensible  of  the  absurdity  of  the  judgment,  "  Angels 
are  beings  consisting  of  winged  human  heads,"  because 
it  knows  from  experience  that,  since  the  human  head  has 
a  mouth  connected  with  a  windpipe  and  digestive  canal, 
a  mouth  without  this  canal  leading  to  lungs  and  stomach 
has  neither  meaning  nor  purpose,  while  no  head  could 
live  without  breath,  circulation,  or  nourishment.    When 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  259 

attention  flags,  and  permits  vague  ideas  to  appear  in 
the  consciousness,  judgments  may  arise  composed  of 
mutually  exclusive  parts,  and  therefore  absurd — op- 
posed, that  is,  to  the  truth  as  known  to  human  ex- 
perience. The  same  result  is  brought  about,  even 
though  the  attention  does  not  flag,  when  the  conscious- 
ness unites  in  one  judgment,  and  places  in  one  category, 
ideas  that  have  been  acquired  by  personal  experience 
and  ideas  that,  having  been  taken  over  ready-made 
from  the  consciousness  of  others,  have  not  been  acquired 
by  experience  or  controlled  by  the  senses,  and  are,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  false. 

The  means  by  which  ideas  are  conveyed  ready-made 
from  one  consciousness  to  another  is  language.  Unless 
the  ideas  combine  parts  that  have  been  proved  by  ex- 
perience to  be  mutually  exclusive,  their  absurdity  will 
not  appear.  Language  can  transmit  false  ones  as  read- 
ily as  true  without,  indeed,  perceiving  any  difference 
between  them,  unless  each  individual  idea  thus  trans- 
mitted be  tested  by  the  senses  and  then  by  experience. 
This  is  in  many  cases  almost,  if  not  wholly,  impossible 
— for  example,  in  the  case  of  assertions  about  events 
that  happened  at  some  remote  time  or  place.  Lan- 
guage is,  therefore,  with  laxity  of  attention,  the  source 
of  false  conclusions.  Moreover,  the  majority  of  men 
never  do  translate  spoken  or  written  images  into  ideas. 
They  remain  in  the  consciousness  mere  sounds  or  signs, 
which  are  either  repeated  or  reproduced  from  time  to 
time,  after  the  fashion  of  parrots  or  monkeys,  without 
any  interpretation  at  all,  or  else  interpreted  in  a  manner 
that  removes  them  more  or  less  from  the  ideas  which 
they  must  originally  have  symbolized.     Thus,  men  who 


26o     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

wish  to  pass  as  learned,  and  even  as  sensible — it  is 
not  necessarily  the  same  thing — have  solemnly  deliv- 
ered themselves,  as  if  they  were  uttering  some  pro- 
fundity, of  such  nonsense  as  Hegel's,  "  The  Roman 
Empire  is  finitude  raised  to  infinitude,"  or  his,  "  The 
sun  is  the  thesis,  the  satellite  and  comet  the  antithesis, 
the  planet  the  synthesis  " ;  or  the  description  by  the 
mystical  Father  Boscowitch  *  of  "  the  material  point 
that  possesses  mass  without  extension."  The  spoken 
and  the  written  word,  which  should  transmit  ideas, 
produce  as  a  rule  nothing  but  psittacism  and  pithecism. 
There  is  one  activity  of  the  consciousness  in  which 
ideas  exist  side  by  side  in  the  order  in  which  they  are 
called  up  by  association  from  the  subconsciousness,  and 
are  combined  in  judgments  even  when  obviously  mutu- 
ally exclusive.  This  occurs  in  dreams,  which  unite 
ideas  in  accordance  with  their  associations  in  time  and 
space  and  their  emotional  resemblances,  without  any 
sense  of  the  unreality  and  absurdity  of  the  images  and 
judgments  thus  formed.  Fantasy,  though  a  waking 
state,  summons  up  and  combines  ideas  by  the  same  un- 
restrained method  of  mechanical  association  found  in 
dreams.  These  ideas,  being  ultimately  recollections — 
reflections,  therefore,  of  some  real  experience — are  com- 
bined in  a  manner  that  is  wholly  unreal.  The  difference 
between  dream  and  fantasy  is  that  in  the  dream  one 
single  bodily  feeling  or  one  emotion  that  dominates 
the  organism  calls  the  ideas  forth  and  combines  them, 
whereas  fantasy  is  not  determined  by  physical  feelings — 
except  in  the  case  of  the  sick,  where  they  cause  delirium 

1  Quoted  by  J.  Paul  Milliet,  "  La  Dynamics  et  les  trois  ames,"  Paris, 

1908,   p.   2. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  261 

— but  by  organic  emotion  combined  with  conscious 
thought,  that  excludes  any  glaringly  contradictory 
ideas,  and  forms  unreal  judgments  for  the  sake  of  their 
charm,  while  perfectly  aware  of  their  unreality. 

All  processes  of  the  brain  and  nervous  system  can  be 
quicker  and  slower,  fainter  or  more  powerful.  These 
differences  of  rhythm  and  intensity  determine  the  differ- 
ences of  individual  temperament.  The  contest  between 
ideas  in  the  consciousness  that  ends  in  the  subjugation 
of  the  one  and  decided  mastery  of  the  other  may  go  on 
.with  more  or  less  energy.  The  greater  the  energy  with 
which  ideas  appear  and  assert  themselves  and  drive 
other  aggressive  ideas  out,  the  keener  and  more  sus- 
tained is  the  attention,  the  firmer  is  the  will.  The 
energy  with  which  ideas  struggle  for  existence  in  the 
consciousness  is  the  measure  of  character.  Character 
and  temperament  are  inborn  characteristics,  like  stature, 
or  the  colour  of  eyes,  hair,  and  skin.  They  may  pos- 
sibly be  increased  by  practice;  they  can  certainly  be 
weakened  and  even  destroyed  by  artificial  means,  by 
alcoholic  and  other  poisons,  and  deficient  resistance  to 
the  desire  for  pleasure. 

All  effort  of  brain  and  nerves,  from  the  first  phase  to 
the  last,  from  differentiation  of  sense  impressions,  per- 
ception, idea,  judgment,  down  to  the  act  of  will,  has  one 
single  purpose — the  adaptation  of  the  organism  to  its 
environment,  the  knowledge  and  utilization  for  its  own 
advantage  of  the  conditions  under  which  it  has  to  main- 
tain its  existence,  its  protection  and  defence  against  the 
harms  and  dangers  threatening  it.  The  necessities  of 
self-preservation  have  caused  the  differentiation  of  the 
general  sensibility  of  the  body  into  various  senses,  and 


262      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  rise  and  development  of  specific  sense  organs.  They 
have  fused  the  exceedingly  limited  consciousness  prob- 
ably inherent  in  every  cell,  every  molecule  of  living  mat- 
ter, into  a  common  organic  consciousness,  and  then 
developed  and  refined  this  consciousness,  enriched  it 
by  the  power  of  associating  ideas,  taught  it  attention, 
and  developed  an  inhibitory  system,  which  can  insure 
the  permanence  of  any  conscious  state,  defend  it  against 
distraction,  suppress  reflex  action,  and  co-ordinate  voli- 
tions. 

The  more  distinct  and  numerous  the  sense  impres- 
sions ;  the  clearer  the  ideas  and  the  fuller  their  reflection 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  states  and  modifications  of 
the  external  world ;  the  more  numerous  and  accurate  the 
recollections  that  they  summon  from  the  subconscious- 
ness; the  more  readily  association  completes  the  imme- 
diate perceptions  and  interprets  to  the  consciousness  the 
order,  succession,  and  connection  of  external  phenom- 
ena, even  where  they  are  not  wholly  concrete;  the 
greater  proportionate  measure  of  reality  contained  by 
judgments,  and  the  acts  of  will,  that  result  from  the 
influence  of  the  judgment  on  the  inhibitions  and  motor 
impulses,  the  closer  the  correspondence  with  the  interest 
of  the  organism  whether  momentary  or  permanent, 
and  the  better  in  proportion  are  its  prospects  of  main- 
taining itself  successfully  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
In  a  word,  attention,  knowledge,  will,  are  all  alike 
forms  of  the  struggle  for  existence.  Every  reaction, 
conscious  or  unconscious,  of  the  organism  to  the  phe- 
nomenal world  is  a  form  of  adaptation,  and  the  driving 
and  creative  force  behind  the  efforts  and  the  develop- 
ment of  mind  is  the  instinct  of  self-preservation. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  263 

Men  are  by  nature  unequal,  as  even  Rousseau  1  ad- 
mits, although  with  singular  logic  he  deduces  from  their 
natural  inequality  the  possibility — nay,  the  necessity — 
of  moral  and  political  equality.  Men  are  unequal  in 
stature,  skull  formation,  and  colour;  they  are  no  less 
unequal  in  temperament  and  character.  The  proximate 
causes  of  this  inequality  are  mainly  heredity,  by  which 
the  type  is  determined,  and  to  a  lesser  degree  unfavour- 
able circumstances,  which  cause  a  morbid  failure  to 
attain  the  full  development  of  the  type.  The  inequality 
resulting  from  unfavourable  circumstances  can  be  easily 
removed  by  an  amelioration  in  these  conditions.  The 
extent  to  which  inequality  resulting  from  heredity  can 
be  influenced  is  as  yet  unknown ;  unknown,  too,  are  the 
remote  causes  of  the  appearance  of  different  human 
types.  We  do  not  know  whether  they  represent  sports 
of  a  species  originally  single,  or  are  the  results  of 
originally  different,  although  closely  related,  prehuman 
animal  species;  whether  they  can  be  modified  and  grad- 
ually transformed  into  one  another  by  external  influ- 
ences, or  remain  fixed  so  long  as  they  are  bred  in,  and 
change  only  when  breeds  are  crossed.  One  thing  is 
certain.  As  men  are  tall  and  short,  dolicho-  and 
brachycephalic,  strong  and  weak  in  muscular,  so  there 
are  men  who  think  slowly  and  men  who  think  rapidly; 

1  J.  J.  Rousseau,  "  Discours  sur  Porigine  et  les  fondements  de 
l'inegalit£  parmi  les  hommes":  "I  conceive  .  .  .  two  kinds  of  in- 
equality: one  which  I  call  natural  or  physical,  because  it  is  estab- 
lished by  nature,  and  consists  in  the  difference  of  age,  health,  bodily 
strength,  and  mental  and  spiritual  qualities;  another,  which  may  be 
called  moral  or  political  inequality,  because  it  depends  upon  a  sort 
of  convention,  and  has  been  established,  or  at  least  authorized,  by 
the  consent  of  men."  * 


264     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

men  in  whom  attention  is  fugitive,  and  men  in  whom 
it  is  sustained;  men  whose  character  is  vacillating,  and 
men  who  are  firm;  men  in  whom  will  is  slack,  and  men 
in  whom  it  is  powerful.  These  characteristics  are  in- 
dubitably the  expression  of  the  chemical  composition 
of  the  living  protoplasm  of  the  cell,  which  varies  be- 
tween man  and  man,  species  and  species. 

Observation  establishes  the  existence  in  man  of  cer- 
tain qualities  which,  in  their  main  outlines,  apart  from 
minor  details,  are  reproduced  with  sufficient  frequency 
to  allow  a  line  to  be  drawn  marking  the  average  level 
of  development,  above  which  only  a  small  minority  rise 
at  all,  and  only  exceptional  cases  by  any  considerable 
extent.  Let  us  select  from  the  crowd  any  individual 
at  random,  a  man  who  is  in  no  sense  outstanding,  neither 
above  nor  beneath  the  normal  level,  and  examine  him 
as  we  should  an  average  specimen  of  any  other  species 
of  which  we  wished  to  form  an  idea.  This  man,  whom 
I  should  like,  in  spite  of  the  ill-repute  into  which  the 
word  has  fallen  through  incautious  use,  to  call  normal, 
is  in  temperament  and  character  the  outcome  of  natural 
and  inherited  tendencies.  The  content  of  his  conscious- 
ness is  largely  the  product  of  education,  of  which  the 
aims  and  methods  have  been  determined  by  society  and 
the  State.  Primitive  man's  whole  knowledge  of  the 
world  must  have  rested  on  his  own  perception  and 
observation,  however  limited  that  may  have  been:  it 
was  based  upon  personal  experience,  went  back  to  actual 
impressions,  and  was  transformed  by  him  to  an  inner 
vision.  In  a  state  of  civilization  the  normal  man  owes 
the  smallest  part  of  his  ideas  and  judgments  to  the  im- 
pressions made  by  his  own  senses,  and  the  mode  in 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  265 

which  they  are  developed  by  his  own  thought.  For 
the  greater  part  they  come  to  him,  as  written  and  spoken 
symbols  through  the  writing  and  speech  of  others,  and 
remain  throughout  his  life  mere  sounds  and  signs,  that 
are  either  associated  with  no  view  at  all,  or  with  one 
quite  at  variance  with  reality.  A  stream  of  words  and 
combinations  pours  in  upon  him  from  language,  inter- 
course, school,  newspapers,  and  books,  and  some  of 
them  remain  in  his  memory  as  formulae.  If  he  is  pro- 
vided with  a  good  supply  of  such  formulae,  and  can 
produce  one  on  any  occasion  that  requires  it,  he  passes 
in  his  own  estimation  and  that  of  his  fellows  as  a  cul- 
tivated man.  But  his  repetition  of  formulae  is  mere 
psittacism,  and  his  word-knowledge  has  nothing  to  do 
with  real  knowledge.  His  consciousness  contains  a  tiny 
kernel  of  experience  shrouded  as  often  as  not  in  a  vast 
fog  of  words. 

Observation  sharpens  the  sense  of  reality,  and  accus- 
toms the  consciousness  to  examine  its  ideas  and  criticize 
the  elements  of  perception  of  which  they  are  composed. 
It  at  once  perceives  the  incompatibility  between  ideas 
combined  in  a  judgment,  and  dismisses  as  absurd  one 
composed  of  incompatible  or  mutually  exclusive  ideas. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  when  the  consciousness,  instead 
of  forming  judgments  from  its  own  sense  perceptions, 
accepts  them  ready-made  in  verbal  form  from  other 
men,  there  is  nothing  to  warn  it  of  their  meaningless- 
ness.  Words  can  be  joined  together  to  form  a  sen- 
tence, even  if  they  express  the  impossible,  and  unless 
the  written  or  spoken  symbol  is  translated  into  an  idea, 
the  impossibility  escapes  the^  consciousness.  Now,  the 
ordinary  man  seldom  translates  his  words  into  ideas, 


266      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

or  only  very  partially.  One  repeats  a  judgment  from 
another,  parrot-wise,  a  judgment  to  which  no  thought 
is  attached.  He  becomes  so  much  accustomed  to  using 
abstractions,  whose  content  at  the  best  is  casual  and 
arbitrary,  that  his  consciousness  ceases  to  mirror  the 
actual  world  at  all.  The  normal  man  neither  observes 
nor  examines.  He  repeats  mechanically  what  he  has 
heard  said.     He  is  not  critical:  he  is  credulous. 

The  capacity  for  attention  is,  as  a  rule,  weakly  de- 
veloped. Even  the  natural  attention,  aroused  and  main- 
tained by  some  immediate  organic  interest,  some  im- 
pulse, desire,  or  passion,  soon  wearies,  and  the  artificial 
attention  that  lacks  any  such  stimulus  is  still  earlier 
exhausted.  Consciousness  in  the  normal  man  is  a  mere 
corridor,  through  which  streams  a  rapid  tide  of  ideas, 
seldom  pausing  to  place  themselves  so  that  they  stand 
out  distinctly,  maintain  their  hold,  or  calls  up  across 
the  threshold  of  consciousness  the  recollections  whose 
association  might  complete  them.  The  result  of  in- 
sufficient attention  is  that  the  immediate  perceptions 
remain  isolated  and  fragmentary.  Mere  word-images, 
that  need  have  no  real  content  at  all,  become  combined 
with  sense  perceptions  to  form  ideas.  False  judgments 
are  thus  formed,  which  are  compelled  by  the  poverty 
and  incompleteness  of  their  associations  to  confine  them- 
selves to  what  is  immediately  given,  without  being  able 
to  trace  its  proximate  and  ultimate  causes  or  its  imme- 
diate and  remote  effects.  Thus,  the  normal  man  can 
see  no  further  into  the  connection  of  phenomena  than 
their  concrete  and  temporal  aspect,  while  he  is  unable 
to  anticipate  the  future,  even  in  so  far  as  it  is  conditioned 
by   the   present.     His    knowledge   is   strictly   limited. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  267 

His  petty  and  distorted  picture  of  the  world  is  almost 
entirely  out  of  touch  with  reality,  because  it  is  composed 
to  a  very  small  extent  of  perceptions,  and  to  a  much 
larger  one  of  word-images,  fantastically  interpreted, 
and  of  the  products  of  a  roving  imagination.  His 
adaptation,  for  which  consciousness  exists,  is  extremely 
defective.  It  leaves  him  defenceless  against  dangers 
which  he  does  not  notice  or  whose  cause  he  cannot  un- 
derstand, poor  in  the  face  of  uncomprehended  possi- 
bilities which  might  enrich  his  life  could  he  but  grasp 
-them. 

Consciousness  strives,  after  the  measure  of  its  capac- 
ity, to  lighten  the  heavy  task  of  adaptation.  The 
method  at  its  disposal  is  habit.  Recurring  perceptions, 
however  casually  or  incompletely  repeated,  will  start  the 
whole  train  of  mental  operations  which  was  initiated 
when  they  were  first  attentively  and  completely  observed. 
Without  any  fresh  effort  of  thought  or  will,  they 
provoke  the  corresponding  ideas,  judgments,  and  acts. 
All  these  activities  are  so  organized  in  the  brain  that 
one  calls  up  the  other,  and  the  organism  responds, 
without  fatigue,  uncertainty,  or  hesitation,  to  the  exist- 
ing stimulus  with  the  appropriate  reaction.  When  the 
habitual  responses  of  consciousness  to  impression  are 
fully  organized,  the  behaviour  of  the  individual  be- 
comes instinctive,  and  his  actions  automatic.  They  do 
not,  indeed,  take  place  entirely  without  activity  on  the 
part  of  the  consciousness,  but  it  is  wholly  freed  from 
anything  painful  in  the  effort  of  thought,  judgment, 
or  will. 

It  has  been  established  by  European  observers  that 
negro  children  possess  a  lively  comprehension  and  quick 


268      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

intelligence,  and  do  not,  when  at  school,  fall  behind 
whites  of  the  same  age.  This  apparent  equality  of 
endowment  lasts  up  to  a  certain  age,  generally  contem- 
poraneous with  puberty.  Then  a  sort  of  numbness 
supervenes.  The  little  blacks  can  no  longer  follow  the 
instruction.  They  become  incapable  of  receiving  new 
ideas,  and  fail,  even  if  they  have  the  will  and  make 
the  effort,  to  rise  above  the  stage  at  which  they  have 
arrived.  This  phenomenon  has  only  been  found 
among  negroes,  because  it  has  only  been  looked  for 
there.  Its  application  is,  however,  not  confined  to  the 
black  race,  but  extends  to  the  whole  human  species, 
without  distinction  of  colour.  The  intellectual  devel- 
opment of  the  average  man  is  not  co-extensive  with  his 
life.  It  soon  ceases,  and  as  a  rule,  as  in  the  case  of 
negro  children,  with  sexual  adolescence. 

Youthful  man  is  liberally  endowed  with  thirst  for 
knowledge  or  curiosity.  New  impressions  give  him 
pleasure,  and  he  seeks  for  them.  He  readily  responds 
to  stimuli,  assimilates  thoughts,  is  seldom  obstinately 
fixed  in  his  ideas,  soon  makes  himself  at  home  wherever 
he  may  be,  and  cleverly  accommodates  himself  to 
change.  However,  even  at  this  stage  of  youthful  plia- 
bility he  finds  it  more  agreeable,  because  less  trouble- 
some, to  imitate  foreign  copies  than  to  invent  rules 
for  himself,  to  repeat  what  he  has  been  told  than  to 
win  personal  knowledge  by  experience.  But  imitation 
comes  easily  and  readily  to  him.  As  he  grows  older 
the  moment  comes,  earlier  to  some,  later  to  others,  when 
the  mind  loses  its  easy  pliability,  and  the  consciousness, 
so  to  speak,  congeals  to  some  extent.  The  desire  for 
knowledge  gives  place  to  dulness.     Man  avoids  any 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  269 

new  experiences  that  penetrate  below  the  surface.  His 
observation  becomes  cursory  and  superficial.  He  dis- 
regards everything  unusual;  he  neither  notices  nor  heeds 
it  unless  it  is  painfully  forced  upon  his  attention.  He 
is  set  against  new  methods  of  thought;  he  dislikes  a 
strange  circle  in  which  he  has  to  watch  the  lie  of  the 
land  and  find  his  own  way  about.  He  is  only  happy 
when  following  the  well-worn  path  of  every  day,  along 
which  he  could  go  in  his  sleep,  or  with  his  eyes  shut, 
so  well  does  he  know  it  and  the  goal  to  which  it  leads. 
He  cannot  be  brought  to  change  his  mind.  He  sticks 
to  his  ideas,  even  when  they  have  been  proved  to  be 
errors.  He  struggles  even  against  imitation,  if  the 
copy  be  new.  He  will  only  repeat  himself.  He  adapts 
himself  to  changed  conditions  of  life  slowly  and  in- 
completely, if  at  all.  He  is  aware  that  his  organization 
is  no  longer  equal  to  the  task  of  dissolving  the  stereo- 
typed combinations  in  his  brain  and  forming  new  asso- 
ciations, and  enters  upon  it  very  timidly.  The  normal 
man's  hatred  for  anything  new,  what  Lombroso  calls 
his  misoneism,  is  a  protective  instinct,  based  upon  bio- 
logical reasons.  It  is  a  form  of  a  protection  against 
harm.  The  man  whose  brain  is  petrified  is  right  in 
dreading  anything  new.  It  makes  demands  which  he 
could  not  meet.  He  prefers  the  often  incredible  misery 
or  even  acute  suffering  to  which  he  is  accustomed  to 
the  effort  involved  in  freeing  himself  from  a  habit  and 
building  up  the  new  disposition  that  promises  to  relieve 
or  rid  him  of  his  pain. 

Such  is  the  normal  man.  His  will  is  of  moderate 
force  and  endurance,  and  therefore  his  attention  is  soon 
fatigued,  and  cannot  remain  long  at  its  full  on  one  point. 


270      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

His  perceptions  in  consequence  are  superficial  and 
fragmentary.  He  completes  them  arbitrarily  by  the 
addition  of  recollections,  more  or  less  suitable,  and 
ideas,  more  or  less  analogous.  The  content  of  his  con- 
sciousness is  meagre,  and  includes  a  little  reality,  a  good 
deal  of  illusion,  and  a  number  of  purely  verbal  symbols 
that  possess  for  him  no  real  meaning.  His  thought 
is  not  energetic  enough  to  carry  to  its  logical  conclusion, 
its  appropriate  judgment,  knowledge,  or  action  any  train 
of  ideas  that  is  of  importance  to  him  at  a  given  moment, 
or  assure  it,  when  so  employed,  the  sole  possession  of 
consciousness  by  keeping  away  the  perpetual  stream  of 
ideas  aroused  by  changing  sense  impressions,  bodily  sen- 
sations, and  accidental  associations.  Rather  he  prefers 
to  saunter  along  the  easy  path  of  semi-conscious  reverie, 
that  needs  no  concentration  and  attention,  no  effort  of 
any  kind,  and  leads  to  no  clearness  of  view,  no  knowl- 
edge, no  serviceable  expression  of  will.  He  cannot 
comprehend  the  connection  of  phenomena,  or  trace  even 
a  few  stages  in  their  near  and  remote  causes  and  their 
necessary  effects.  Within  his  own  consciousness  he 
cannot  differentiate  a  reflection  of  the  truth  from  an 
addition  of  the  imagination.  He  is'  happy  only  when 
following  a  routine,  and  shrinks  instinctively  from  the 
unknown,  with  its  demands  on  attention,  observation, 
rational  interpretation,  and  personal  judgment,  action, 
and  resolution.  Although  the  species  has  existed  for 
millions  of  years,  man's  power  of  adaptation  is  but 
very  moderately  developed,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
struggle  to  maintain  himself  against  unfriendly  nature 
he  has  done  no  more  than  acquire  a  few  useful  apti- 
tudes, which  he  hastens  to  employ,  with  the  least  pos- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  271 

sible  exertion,  by  organizing  them  as  habits.  The  con- 
ditions of  his  life  demand  that  he  should  be  ever  on  the 
war-path  against  nature,  but  he  evades  the  encounter 
whenever  he  can  by  following  a  routine  which  consists 
in  a  dubious  peace  or  at  least  an  armistice  with  his 
hostile  environment. 

Above  this  average  level  there  rises  a  minority  more 
highly  developed  and  more  efficient.  The  superior 
man  has  a  more  perfect  brain.  The  biochemical  proc- 
esses of  its  cell  plasm  are  more  energetic,  and  the  brain 
itself  retains  plasticity  much  longer,  and  in  exceptional 
cases  even  unto  extreme  old  age.  The  consequences  of 
these  anatomical  and  physiological  premises  are  mo- 
mentous. The  temperament  of  the  superior  man  is 
vital,  his  character  is  firm.  His  feelings  are  strong, 
and  his  will  powerful  and  sustained.  He  acts,  there- 
fore, with  decision  and  energy.  His  attention  is  not 
easily  fatigued.  No  distractions  avail  to  divert  it. 
He  is  thus  a  keen  observer  of  the  aspects  of  reality 
that  are  of  importance  for  himself.  His  inhibitions 
are  swift  and  sure,  and  his  instincts  completely  subject 
to  his  will.  His  will,  guided  by  his  judgment,  restrains 
automatism  within  narrow  bounds,  or  suppresses  it  alto- 
gether. Instead  of  allowing  himself  to  be  enslaved 
to  the  convenience  of  habit,  he  adapts  himself  to  every 
modification  of  his  environment.  His  reactions  are  not 
mechanical.  Every  change  elicits  a  new,  appropriate 
response.  Perhaps  his  most  striking  peculiarity,  and 
the  real  cause  of  his  superiority  to  the  average  man, 
is  the  feeling  for  the  concrete  which  is  the  result  of  his 
faculty  of  sustained  and  concentrated  attention. 

I  must  dwell  for  a  little  on  this  point.     We  are  accus- 


272     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tomed  to  regard  the  power  of  abstraction  as  the  peculiar 
glory  of  human  thought,  which  we  conceive  to  be 
superior  to  that  of  animals,  limited  as  it  is  to  the  con- 
crete, and  incapable  of  general  concepts.  This  is,  how- 
ever, probably  an  error  in  which  philosophy  has  for 
centuries  been  involved,  and  from  which  we  should  have 
the  courage  to  free  ourselves.  Abstraction  is,  of  all 
mental  processes,  the  most  delicate  and  uncertain.  In 
reality,  phenomena  follow  one  another  in  space  and 
time,  and  no  two  are  ever  identical.  Our  perception 
becomes  accustomed  to  neglect  the  less  striking  differ- 
ences between  them,  and  to  dwell  on  the  striking  points 
of  resemblance;  so  gradually,  we  begin  to  regard  the 
resemblances  as  essential,  and  the  differences  as  acces- 
sory, and  thus,  on  this  basis  of  resemblance,  we  com- 
bine all  individual  concrete  phenomena  in  a  single  idea. 
This  synthetic  idea  is  an  abstraction.  It  is  arrived  at 
in  the  same  way  as  the  composite  photography  of 
Galton  and  Spencer,  and  has  the  same  significance.  It 
is  well  known  that  Galton  got  his  pictures  by  placing 
before  the  photographic  lens  a  number  of  photographs 
of  equal  size,  one  after  another,  under  the  same  con- 
ditions as  to  exposure,  distance,  and  light.  The  sensi- 
tive plate  took  an  equal  impression  of  each.  Features 
common  to  some  or  all  the  photographs  combined  in  the 
negative,  and  came  out  strongly.  Those  which  ap- 
peared more  rarely  or  only  once  came  less  prominently 
or  not  at  all.  The  finished  portrait  is  the  sum  of  the 
individual  likenesses.  It  has  a  distant  resemblance  to 
them  all  without  being  like  any.  It  is  an  ideal  scheme 
of  all  the  photographs  that  composed  it,  but  in  no  sense 
an  aspect  of  the  real.     Galton  promised  himself  weighty 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  273 

results  from  his  method.  It  could  not  produce  them, 
for  it  permits  the  synthesis  of  all  possible  phenomena 
possessing  any  feature  in  common,  without  stipulating 
that  this  feature  should  be  essential  to  any.  A  synthe- 
sis uniting  components  thus  arbitrarily  selected  is  a  piece 
of  foolery  that  may  be  amusing,  but  tells  us  nothing 
worth  knowing  about  the  component  parts. 

In  the  same  way,  abstraction  unites  certain  individual 
features  belonging  to  a  series  of  concrete  phenomena — 
features  that  need  only  be  the  most  obvious,  not  the 
.most  important.  Abstraction  thus  arises  from  an  un- 
conscious selection  from  among  the  elements  of  any 
phenomenon,  by  retaining  this  and  neglecting  that.  It 
is  an  interpretation:  it  involves  a  preconceived  opinion 
about  the  phenomenon,  a  judgment  as  to  what  is  and 
what  is  not  important.  It  imposes  upon  perception 
subjective  requirements  that  must  twist  and  mutilate  it, 
and  are  an  incessant  source  of  errors. 

Biologically,  abstract  thought  is  necessary  to  spare 
the  brain  much  tedious  labour,  and  permit  it  to  acquire 
from  isolated  perceptions  a  connected  image  of  the 
world  possessing  rational  significance.  But  this  advan- 
tage is  obtained  at  the  cost  of  grave  disadvantages. 
Abstract  thought  is  certainly  a  pleasing  relief  from  the 
concentrated  attention  involved  in  the  effort  to  observe 
and  comprehend  reality,  but  it  loses  in  reliability  what 
it  gains  in  ease.  It  departs  too  easily  from  the  concrete 
phenomenon,  which  alone  possesses  objective  truth,  and 
creates  subjective  illusion  in  the  consciousness  instead  of 
knowledge.  The  more  concrete  a  man's  thought,  the 
greater  his  mastery  of  reality.  Some  of  the  most  im- 
portant discoveries  have  been  due  to  that  sustained 


274     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

attention  to  the  minute  differences  of  similar  phenomena 
with  which  abstraction  thinks  to  dispense.  By  such 
means  Ramsay  found  argon,  neon,  xenon,  and  helium  in 
air;  Curie  and  his  wife  extracted  radium  from  uranium; 
and  Javillier  1  proved  that  one  unit  of  zinc,  of  which  the 
significance  in  plant  life  was  entirely  unknown,  will 
produce  a  hundred  thousand  times  its  own  weight  in 
the  Aspergillus  niger. 

The  distrust  with  which  abstract  reasoning  should 
be  regarded  applies  still  more  strongly  to  reasoning  by 
analogy  or  intuition.  Each  of  these  methods  is  a  source 
of  ideas  and  judgments  in  the  consciousness  which  it 
takes  for  knowledge.  They  are  easy,  comfortable 
methods,  but  they  lead  too  often  to  pathless  quagmires 
of  error  and  delusion.  Analogies,  like  intuitions,  con- 
tain a  small  kernel  of  usefulness.  When  there  is  a 
partial  resemblance  between  two  phenomena,  it  is  natu- 
ral to  refer  this  resemblance  to  some  cause  which  the 
two  are  supposed  to  have  in  common,  and  to  assume 
the  existence  of  a  connection  between  them  closer  than 
the  visible  resemblance  itself.  In  this  way  the  known 
may  be  the  key  to  the  unknown,  and  analogy  may  ac- 
quire a  heuristic  value.  But  the  greatest  care  must  be 
taken  in  the  use  of  analogies.  It  must  always  be  re- 
membered that  the  dissimilarities  of  the  phenomena 
have  their  causes  as  well  as  the  similarities;  that  the 
difference  between  them  and  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
related  is  proved  as  surely  by  the  one  set  of  character- 
istics as  relationship  can  be  by  the  other;  and  that  it  is 
a  logical  error  to  identify  phenomena  on  the  ground  of 

1  Javillier,    "  Recherches    sur    la    presence   et    le    role    du    zinc   chez 
les  plantes,"  Paris,  1908. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  275 

certain  resemblances,  and  overlook  the  simultaneous 
existence  of  their  differences.  Moreover,  it  is  in  all 
cases  necessary  to  establish  epistemologically  that  the 
resemblance  itself  is  not  a  mere  deceptive  appearance, 
a  subjective  arrangement,  amplification,  and  interpreta- 
tion of  phenomena  based  upon  our  habit  of  thought, 
and  proceeding  from  inaccurate  observation.  If  two 
phenomena  appear  to  us  to  be  similar  because  our  ob- 
servation has  in  each  case  been  incorrect,  or  because  in 
each  case  we  have  introduced,  from  our  own  conscious- 
ness, a  subjective  trait  foreign  to  both,  which  is  the 
sole  cause  of  their  apparent  similarity,  we  start  from 
an  error;  and  we  arrive  at  an  error  if  we  draw  any 
inference  from  one  phenomenon  to  the  other  which  is 
based  upon  a  resemblance  which  has  no  objective  ex- 
istence. Intuition,  too,  can  serve  as  a  guide;  for,  after 
all,  the  sole  phenomenon  in  the  world  that  is  seen  from 
within  is  our  own  consciousness.  We  surprise  move- 
ments in  it  that  we  can  perceive  nowhere  else,  and  which 
must  remain  eternally  unknown  to  us  everywhere  else. 
Could  we,  then,  but  connect  the  movements  detected 
in  our  consciousness  with  conditions  and  processes  out- 
side ourselves,  we  might  obtain  a  knowledge  of  them 
such  as  could  be  got  in  no  other  way.  The  great  danger 
is  that  it  is  seldom  possible  to  examine  the  relation 
between  our  intuitions,  the  strictly  subjective  move- 
ments of  our  consciousness,  and  any  objective  proc- 
ess in  the  world,  and  therefore  we  can  never  know 
with  certainty  the  objective  worth  of  our  subjective 
intuitions. 

The  superior  man  is  marked  by  realism.     He  hardly 
knows  the  flattering  delight  of  day-dreams.     His  fancy 


276     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

does  not  soar  into  cloudy  regions,  into  a  world  remote 
from  space  and  time.  His  thought  does  not  occupy 
itself  with  any  phantasmagoria  of  words,  or  with  ab- 
stractions which,  being  devoid  of  any  concrete  content, 
can  float  aloft  above  the  real.  No  feature  of  the  phe- 
nomenon appears  unworthy  of  his  attention;  he  lets 
none  escape  him;  he  tries  to  understand  or  perceive 
them  all.  He  would  rather  admit  the  existence  of 
gaps  in  his  knowledge  than  hide  them  by  meaningless 
words  or  arbitrary  fancies.  With  careful  assurance 
he  traces  the  concrete  event  back  to  its  causes,  and 
thence  infers  the  effects  to  which  he  can  thus  advan- 
tageously adapt  himself  in  advance.  Thus  he  faces 
nature  like  a  skilful  duellist  who  knows  his  opponent's 
methods  of  fence,  foresees  and  easily  parries  his  strokes ; 
and  in  the  battle  of  life  he  is  as  superior  to  the  aver- 
age man,  whose  thinking  is  made  up  of  abstraction 
and  words  without  ideas,  as  an  armed  man  with 
the  use  of  his  eyes  is  to  an  unarmed  man  who  is 
blind. 

It  is,  of  course,  understood  that  the  species  does  not 
really  consist  of  two  sharply  distinguished  races — the 
average  man,  whose  attention  wanders,  and  the  superior 
man,  in  whom  it  is  sustained.  Between  these  two  there 
are  innumerable  transition  stages,  and  the  differences 
only  become  striking  when  we  take  representatives 
standing  at  the  farther  ends  of  the  scale.  The  superior 
man  rises  high  above  the  average  in  proportion  as  his 
attention,  the  first  manifestation  of  the  inherent  energy 
of  his  will,  is  concentrated  and  sustained,  his  conscious- 
ness filled  by  concrete  images,  his  judgment  in  close 
touch  with  reality :  as  he  succeeds,  on  the  one  hand,  in 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  277 

tracing  phenomena  back  to  their  causes  and  in  foresee- 
ing their  effects,  and,  on  the  other,  in  obtaining  a  rela- 
tively complete  comprehension  of  the  determining  fac- 
tors in  their  development  and  mutual  interaction — in 
proportion  as,  instead  of  stereotyping  his  associa- 
tions into  fixed  habits,  he  retains  that  capacity  of 
silent  adaptation  to  all  the  modifications  of  the 
external  world  which  carries  him  on  to  ever  new 
resolves,  and  to  the  ever  more  forcible  realization  in 
action. 

-  These  characteristics  mark  out  the  superior  man  as 
master.  He  has  what  Hobbes  calls  "  the  natural 
mastery  of  force — that  is,  of  certain  individuals, 
impelled  to  command  by  the  constitution  of  their 
brain." 

He  cannot  refuse  the  part,  even  if  he  would;  it  is 
imposed  upon  him.  He  could  only  escape  it  if  he  lived, 
like  Robinson  Crusoe  or  Timon  of  Athens,  in  isolation, 
solitary  and  remote  from  his  fellow-men,  or  among 
individuals  of  his  own  type  with  equal  natural  endow- 
ments— a  condition  seldom  realized,  since  the  type  only 
appears  among  the  crowd  and  in  isolated  instances  as 
a  rare  exception.  Average  mankind  may  scorn  the 
thinker  and  the  dreamer,  they  may  entirely  fail  to 
understand  the  profound  speculations  of  the  philosopher 
or  the  creations  of  the  artistic  imagination,  but  they 
at  once  recognize  the  man  of  will  and  judgment,  whose 
will  reacts  to  every  new  phenomenon  with  a  new  reso- 
lution, and  bow  their  heads  before  him.  If  in  a  posi- 
tion that  requires  new  adaptation  they  discover  among 
them  a  man  who  knows  how  to  command,  they  are 
happy  to  obey  him.     They  are  so  clearly  aware  of  their 


278      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

own  helplessness  in  the  midst  of  constant  change  and 
perpetual  flux,  of  their  want  of  knowledge,  the  slowness 
and  difficulty  with  which  they  find  their  way  about,  that 
they  turn  eagerly  and  follow  the  man  who  goes  through 
the  world  and  life  with  the  certain  tread  of  an  old 
traveller.  His  directions,  his  commands,  are  a  welcome 
relief  from  the  necessity  of  forming  their  own  judg- 
ments and  carrying  them  out  into  act.  Anyone  who 
spares  them  this  most  troublesome  form  of  cerebral 
activity  is  blessed  by  them  as  a  saviour.  Any  physical 
effort,  deprivation,  hardship,  or  danger  the  commander 
may  impose  upon  them  seems  lighter  and  easier  to  bear 
than  the  toil  of  self-determination,  of  making  up  their 
own  minds,  and  the  dread  of  having  to  find  their  way 
about  the  world  without  a  guide.  Thus  the  man  of 
action,  who  issues  commands  with  absolute  decision, 
and  in  which  no  trace  of  doubt,  delay,  or  hesitation  is 
discernible,  masters  the  average  man  at  the  first  glance, 
so  to  speak.  Men  have  an  absolute  flair  for  him ;  they 
flee  to  him.  This  is  seen  in  every  sphere,  narrow  and 
wide — in  families,  clubs,  unions,  corporations,  societies 
great  and  small.  All  hasten  to  cast  responsibility  upon 
anyone  who  is  willing  to  assume  it.  '  All  are  ready  to 
follow  an3'one  who  resolutely  takes  the  lead.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  step  boldly  forward  to  be  recognized  as 
leader.  The  crowd  do  not  inquire  as  to  his  objects; 
they  believe  he  knows,  and  that  is  enough  for  them. 
They  will  follow  him  into  morasses  and  up  to  precipices. 
No  doubt  as  to  the  wisdom  of  their  trust  is  awakened 
in  them,  even  when  they  are  being  drowned  and 
smothered,  or  dashed  in  pieces  against  the  rocks.  If 
death  itself  comes,  and  they  reflect  upon  its  cause  at 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  279 

all,  it  seems  to  them  the  result  of  unlucky  chance,  to 
vhich  they  are  sacrificed  by  no  fault  of  their  leaders. 
The  wilder  and  more  boundless  the  claims  of  a  com- 
mander, the  greater  the  wonder  and  enthusiasm  of  his 
followers.  Immeasurable  and  incomprehensible  aims 
seem  to  them  a  special  proof  of  his  greatness.  They 
resent  making  small  sacrifices;  but  if  the  man  they  have 
recognized  as  their  master  demand  the  last  and  utter- 
most, they  perform  them  with  a  sort  of  joy  in  which 
there  mingles  a  pride  in  the  greatness  of  their  own 
achievement,  admiration  of  selves  in  performing  it,  and 
thankful  devotion  to  the  man  who  has  raised  them  to 
such  a  level  of  superhuman  exertion.  The  average 
man  can  often  be  made  to  do  things  that  he  would  never 
have  carried  out,  never  even  have  dared  to  dream  of, 
things  that  the  world  is  not  wholly  wrong  in  placing  to 
the  score  of  the  ruthless  commander,  rather  than  of  the 
obedient  instrument. 

To  the  average  man  the  man  of  will  and  deeds  ap- 
pears as  a  creature  of  a  superior  mould,  outwardly 
near,  but  inwardly  impenetrably  remote;  trusted  as  an 
equal,  but  incomprehensible  as  a  God;  a  mysterious  fire 
from  which  fascination  and  terror  radiate.  He  feels 
towards  him  as  his  primitive  ancestors  felt  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  fearsome  powers  of  nature  and  the  insoluble 
riddle  of  the  world — horror,  admiration,  and  an  irre- 
sistible impulse  to  humiliate  himself  and  bow  his  head 
in  the  dust  before  him.  Hero-worship  is  a  primitive 
instinct  in  the  human  soul,  and  grows  from  the  same 
soil  as  religion;  it  is  a  form  of  religion,  a  deification 
of  that  natural  force  before-  which  man  feels  himself 
pitiably  small  and  strengthless.     Every  great  man  of 


280     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

will  and  deeds  creates  a  religion,  without  wishing  to 
do  so — a  religion  of  which  he  is  the  God.  He  is  a 
God  to  those  who  submit  to  the  compulsion  of  his  will. 
In  thankful  submission  they  accept  the  fate  that  he 
imposes  on  them.  Tyrants,  conquerors,  and  com- 
manders have  aroused  enthusiastic  devotion  in  their 
followers.  They  have  accepted  with  ecstatic  joy  all 
the  evils  laid  upon  them  by  their  idols.  The  average 
man  naturally  approaches  the  man  who  is  sure  of  him- 
self and  knows  how  to  command  with  folded  hands  and 
bended  knees.  He  does  not  distinguish  between  differ- 
ent sources  of  energy  of  will.  The  madman,  whose 
ruthless  will,  checked  by  no  restraints,  is  morbidly  stim- 
ulated to  the  point  of  delirium,  will,  so  long  as  his 
madness  does  not  take  a  form  in  which  it  is  easily 
recognized  by  the  ignorant,  and  sometimes  even  then, 
rouse  the  same  enthusiastic  devotion  and  attract  the 
same  fanatical  partisans  as  the  sanest  and  most  har- 
monious genius.  One  need  only  recall  the  examples  of 
John  of  Leyden,  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  or  the  Argen- 
tine dictator  Rosas.  Only  the  unconquerable  resistance 
of  reality  at  last  opened  the  eyes  of  some  of  the  ardent 
worshippers,  and  enabled  them  to  judge  whether  their 
idol  had  been  directed  by  rational  judgments  or  the 
visions  of  madness. 

The  eager  readiness  of  the  crowd  to  submit  to  his 
commands  inevitably  rouses  in  the  superior  man  the 
conviction  that  he  has  a  natural  right  to  use  them  for 
his  own  ends.  The  only  consideration  that  the  crowd 
demands  or  receives  at  his  hands  is  careful  and  econom- 
ical usage  of  a  valuable  piece  of  property.  At  the 
most,  he  refrains  from  exhausting  the  soil,  or  killing 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  281 

prematurely  the  hen  that  lays  the  golden  eggs.  The 
whole  bent  of  the  mind  of  the  superior  man  who  is 
born  to  command  is  egoistic,  not  altruistic.  His  will 
is  directed  to  his  own  advantage,  not  to  that  of  the 
crowd.  Any  good  that  accrues  to  them  does  so  as  the 
by-product  of  acts  solely  directed  to  the  purpose  of  satis- 
fying his  own  needs.  The  celebration  of  conquerors 
as  benefactors,  and  the  devotion  often  accorded  to  them 
by  the  crowd,  is  a  form  of  self-complacent  anthro- 
pomorphism, like  the  attribution  to  the  sun,  which  sus- 
tains all  life  on  earth,  of  a  conscious  desire  to  gratify 
mankind  with  light  and  warmth.  Thus,  the  gratitude 
of  the  crowd  transfers  its  own  sentiments  to  the  mind  of 
the  great  man,  whose  plans  and  actions  are  as  little 
directed  to  their  benefit  as  is  the  energy  with  which  the 
sun  irradiates  the  earth.  When  Augustus  gave  peace 
to  the  Roman  world;  when  Charlemagne  spread  in- 
struction and  superintended  law  and  government  by  his 
missi  dominici;  when  Henry  IV.  wished  that  every  sub- 
ject might  have  a  fowl  in  his  pot  on  Sunday;  when 
Frederick  the  Great  called  himself  the  first  servant  of 
the  State;  and  when  Alexander  II.  emancipated  the 
serfs,  the  object  they  all  had  before  them  was  in  every 
case  the  same — to  make  their  own  rule  and  command 
easier  and  more  productive,  and  therefore  more  pleas- 
ant to  themselves,  by  the  perfection  of  their  instrument, 
the  State,  and  its  institutions,  and  by  preventing  con- 
tumacy and  increasing  productivity  on  the  part  of  the 
crowd — in  a  word,  by  behaving  like  good  landlords 
who  manure  and  weed  their  fields. 

No  doubt  there  exist,  side  by  side  with  the  men  of 
will  and  deeds,  men  whose  hearts  are  full  of  love  for 


282      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  world  and  dreams  of  universal  happiness,  whose 
thoughts  and  actions  are  not  directed  by  their  own 
egoism,  but  by  the  good  of  humanity  as  a  whole,  and 
who  find  their  highest  satisfaction  in  sacrificing  them- 
selves for  their  fellow-men.  It  is  painful  to  have  to 
judge  these  radiant  figures,  who  must  attract  the  most 
profound  love  and  admiration  in  all  who  behold  them, 
by  the  dry  light  of  reason;  but  psychological  analysis 
must  eschew  sensibility,  and  no  piety  should  compromise 
its  results.  There  is  something  unnatural  about  a  ten- 
derness devoted,  not  to  definite  individuals,  but  to  an 
aggregate  of  unknown  persons — an  abstraction  without 
personality.  Men  whose  actions  are  animated  by  such 
a  feeling  as  this  fall  within  the  category  of  the  abnor- 
mal; they  are  mystics  whose  emotions  are  morbid  and 
their  instincts  more  or  less  perverted.  They  sway  be- 
tween flight  from  the  world  and  a  fierce  desire  to  redeem 
it  by  their  blood.  They  are  saints,  reformers,  revolu- 
tionaries. They  found  holy  orders,  preach  penance, 
and  create  constitutions ;  in  more  recent  times  they  found 
societies  and  speak  in  the  streets  and  parks;  but  they 
also  throw  bombs  and  set  conspiracies  on  foot.  We 
are  only  speaking  of  the  genuine  protagonist  of  the 
gospel  of  brotherly  love,  whose  passionate  altruism  is 
alloyed  by  no  conscious  admixture  of  self.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  point  out  that  they  find  clever  imitators, 
who  gratify  their  greedy  vanity  or  other  sordid  desires 
behind  the  mask  of  love  of  mankind;  such  practised 
cheats  are  outside  our  present  scope.  It  is  very  rare 
for  the  specific  emotionalism,  the  organic  premise  of 
self-forgetful  altruism,  to  be  combined  with  attention, 
with  a  sense  of  reality,  and  with  judgment.     The  eager 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  283 

friend  of  man  hardly  ever  knows  the  real  needs  of 
mankind  as  a  whole,  or  of  the  greater  part  of  it;  he  will 
sacrifice  his  whole  life  in  the  struggle  to  remove  evils 
that,  though  widespread,  are  incapable  of  cure,  or  that 
occur  seldom,  and  cause  distress  to  very  few.  It  is 
much  to  have  helped  even  these  few  without  thought 
of  self.  As  a  rule,  however,  the  activity  of  enthusiastic 
philanthropists  is  not  directed  to  the  removal  of  evils  so 
much  as  the  provision  of  new  possibilities  of  joy  for 
mankind  as  a  whole.  They  strive  to  satisfy  desires 
felt  by  hardly  anyone  but  themselves,  which  they  have 
observed,  not  in  their  fellow-men,  whose  benefactors 
they  wish  to  be,  but  in  their  own  abnormal  natures. 
For  one  Dunant,  who  founded  the  Red  Cross  Order, 
one  Plimsoll,  who  put  an  end  to  the  cold-blooded  mur- 
dering of  sailors  by  sending  them  out  in  vessels  that, 
though  heavily  insured,  were  quite  unseaworthy,  one 
founder  of  vacation  schools,  there  are  hundreds  of 
founders  of  Bible  societies,  missionary  unions,  ethical 
movements,  committees  for  decorating  balconies  and 
window-boxes  with  flowers,  associations  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  lifting  of  the  hat,  etc. — societies,  that  is, 
of  no  possible  utility  save  to  their  founders  and  a  few 
persons  of  like  mind. 

Great  altruists  have  no  effective  influence  on  the 
average  man.  No  crowd  submits  to  their  will.  They 
are  not  capable  of  rousing  swarms  of  followers  to  ex- 
ertion or  extracting  services  from  them.  Their 
thoughts  and  ideas  become  powerful  only  when  they 
are  appropriated  by  the  daring  selfishness  of  some 
egoist,  who  uses  any  means"  to  gain  his  ends.  Thus 
hardened  politicians,  whose  aims  are  directed  to  the 


284      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

interest  of  a  ruling  class,  will  carry  out  the  schemes  of 
insurance  against  accidents  and  the  Old  Age  Pension 
conceived  by  the  disinterested  friends  of  the  expro- 
priated. 

Compelled  to  adapt  itself  to  unfavourable  conditions 
or  to  succumb,  the  species  has  developed  its  nerve- 
centres  until  the  brain  has  become  capable  of  artificial 
attention,  of  knowledge,  of  correct  inferences  as  to 
causes  and  effects,  and  of  the  conception  and  execution 
of  extraordinarily  complicated  actions  directed  by  aims 
that  are  present,  not  in  a  concrete,  but  an  imagined 
form.  This  faculty  is  present  to  a  very  different  degree 
in  different  individuals.  The  possession  of  a  greater 
supply  of  the  associations  acquired  by  attention  or  mem- 
ory, more  swiftness  and  more  accuracy  in  combination 
and  separation  of  ideas,  a  more  powerful  control  of 
the  will  over  the  motor  stimuli — that  is,  a  higher  general 
level  of  energy  in  the  nerve-cells — gives  to  the  favoured 
individual  a  superiority  over  those  who  do  not  possess 
these  faculties  in  the  same  degree,  and  inevitably  makes 
him  their  master. 

Such  are  the  psychological  premises  of  all  those  social 
relations  of  men  whose  establishment,  maintenance,  de- 
velopment, and  destruction  determine  the  course  of  his- 
tory: on  the  one  hand  a  minority  of  superior,  on  the 
other  a  majority  of  average,  men.  The  former  under- 
stand, by  virtue  of  their  sense  of  reality,  their  correct 
knowledge  of  cause  and  effect,  and  their  penetration  into 
the  regular  connection  of  phenomena,  that  the  easiest 
and  most  profitable  mode  of  adaptation  for  them  is  to 
use,  and,  if  necessary,  to  abuse,  other  men  for  their 
own  ends — that  is,  the  method  of  ruthless  exploitation, 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  285 

energetic  parasitism.  They  possess  the  ability  and  the 
strength  of  will  to  subdue  the  herd  to  their  service  by 
flattery,  deception,  or  command,  as  one  or  the  other 
method  promises  the  best  result.1  The  latter — the 
average  men — submit  consciously  or  unconsciously  to 
their  superiors,  and  make  efforts,  often  amounting  to 
self-sacrifice,  to  insure  for  them  the  most  favourable 
conditions  of  existence;  their  adaptation  consists  in 
obedience  to  those  who  think,  will,  and  decide  for  them, 
who  perform  those  highest  and  finest  functions  of  the 
brain  for  which  they  are  themselves  much  less  per- 
fectly organized. 

These  relations,  between  the  superior  man  who  com- 
mands and  takes  and  the  average  man  who  submits  and 
gives,  appear  in  a  typically  simple  and  luminous  form 
only  under  primitive  conditions.  In  the  beginning, 
superiority  must  have  taken  the  form  of  greater  mus- 
cular strength  or  skill  and  greater  intrepidity.  Then 
the  superior  man's  title  to  command  had  to  be  proved 
with  fist  and  club,  by  practised  wrestling,  hurling,  and 
shooting,  bold  attack,  and  successful  stratagem ;  he  had 
to  subdue  the  average  man  to  his  will  by  immediate 
personal  compulsion,  later  by  the  reputation  for  in- 
vincibility. At  a  rather  more  advanced  stage  of  de- 
velopment the  superior  man  no  longer  subdued  the 
average  man  by  beating  or  strangling  him,  but  by  the 
moral  influence  of  attractive  promises  to  be  redeemed 
at  a  distant  date,  terrible  suggestions  of  supernatural 
power — in  a  word,  by  illusions,  which  called  up  feelings 
of  pleasure  and  pain,  and  enslaved  him  by  means  of  hope 

1  Machiavelli,  "The  Prince":  "The  world  must  be  governed  by 
force  or  fraud." 


286     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

or  fear.1  In  this  phase  the  superior  man  is  not  a  terrible 
warrior,  but  a  priest,  magician,  prophet,  or  demagogue. 

As  development  proceeded,  the  family  group  ex- 
panded to  a  race,  a  people,  and  society  was  formed, 
conditions  became  more  complex,  and  the  influence  of 
the  superior  man  upon  the  average,  instead  of  being 
effected  direct  from  man  to  man,  proceeded  indirectly, 
through  instruments.  These  instruments  are  traditions 
and  institutions,  which,  again,  are  but  the  petrified  will 
of  former  superior  men.  The  law  of  least  effort  regu- 
lates the  exploitation  of  the  weak  by  the  strong.  The 
strong  man  wishes  to  economize  effort  as  much  as 
possible,  even  in  his  parasitism.  His  method  is  to  em- 
ploy association  of  ideas  and  habit  in  the  minds  of 
those  whom  he  exploits.  He  influences  the  former  by 
symbols;  the  latter  enables  him  to  build  up  and  utilize 
permanent  institutions  which  make  and  keep  the  crowd 
subservient  automatically,  and,  as  a  rule,  without  any 
exertion  on  his  part. 

Symbols  take  the  place  of  the  tangible  methods  of 
violence,  and  call  into  the  consciousness,  by  association, 
the  ideas  connected  with  them.  When  the  warrior  has 
brandished  his  club  long  enough  with  murderous  re- 
sults, he  finds  a  symbolic  weapon  adequate  to  bring  to 
the  recollection  of  the  crowd  the  bloody  deeds  accom- 
plished by  the  actual  brand.  Thus  the  battle-axe  be- 
comes the  staff  of  office  found  among  the  oldest  pre- 
historic implements;  thus  the  head-dress,  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  mightiest  warrior  in  battle,   to   inspire 

1  For  the  importance  of  the  part  played  by  illusion  in  history, 
compare,  among  others,  Georg  Adler,  "  The  Significance  of  Illusions 
in  Political  and  Social  Life,"  Berlin,  1907. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  287 

terror  in  the  foe,  becomes  the  crown ;  and  thus  the  ruler 
exacts  from  the  subservient  crowd  marks  of  honour 
symbolic  of  the  unconditional  submission  of  the  van- 
quished. Obeisance,  bending  of  the  knee,  prostration, 
folding  or  raising  of  the  hands,  are  all  postures  in  which 
the  vanquished  awaits,  unarmed,  the  death-stroke  of 
the  victor,  or  the  mercy  which  only  his  pity  can  conceive. 
Since  the  appeal  of  the  magician  and  the  priest  is  essen- 
tially to  the  imagination  of  the  crowd,  he  has  no 
weapons;  he  needs  symbols  only,  and  these  symbols  are 
more  numerous,  and  play  a  more  important  part  in 
religion  and  culture  than  in  the  State.  Since  the  differ- 
ence between  the  superior  and  the  average  man  is  a 
difference  of  degree  or  quantity,  not  of  substance,  and 
since  their  intellectual  life  proceeds  according  to  the 
same  rules,  only  with  a  varying  degree  of  energy,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  in  time  the  symbols  have  a  powerful 
effect  on  the  ruler  as  well  as  on  the  ruled,  and  call  up 
trains  of  associated  ideas  in  the  former  which  they  were 
intended  to  arouse  only  in  the  latter. 

The  ruler  is  preserved,  by  that  sense  of  reality  which 
we  have  learned  to  regard  as  his  most  salient  character- 
istic, from  connecting  with  the  external  signs  belonging 
to  the  supreme  power,  with  the  lofty  dignitaries  of 
State  and  of  the  ruling  class,  the  vague  ideas  of  trem- 
bling veneration  and  the  strong  emotions  accompanying 
them — emotions  which  they  were  intended  to  evoke  in 
the  subject;  from  valuing  the  symbols  of  subjection 
almost  as  highly  as  the  very  practical  and  useful  dues 
that  accrue  from  it.  The  primitive  hero  and  conqueror 
swings  his  club,  and  the  threatening  gesture  provides 
him  with  herds,  wives,  slaves,  hunting-grounds,  or  what- 


288      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ever  else  he  wants.  The  civilized  ruler  appears  with 
crown  and  sceptre,  and  is  greeted  with  a  homage  that, 
though  purely  symbolic,  gives  him  hardly  less  pleasure 
than  the  Civil  List,  not  because  homage  premises  the 
punctual  payment  of  the  Civil  List,  but  because  it  gives 
him  pleasure  in  itself.  Kings  respect  the  orders  and 
titles  that  they  themselves  confer  almost  as  much  as  do 
those  upon  whom  they  are  conferred  and  the  crowd 
behind  them.  This  feeling,  far  from  being  confined  to 
kings  who  are  remote  descendants  of  the  founder  of  a 
dynasty,  and  never  could  have  risen  to  the  highest  place 
by  the  force  of  their  own  right  arm  or  their  own  brain, 
is  found  even  in  men  like  Napoleon,  who  are  the 
authors  of  their  own  greatness. 

We  have  seen  that  all  civil  institutions  spring  from 
the  parasitic  desire  on  the  part  of  a  man  of  force  to 
secure  his  exploitation  of  the  many.  This  is  the  origin 
of  retainers,  bodyguards,  a  warrior  caste,  a  privileged 
or  noble  class,  regular  taxation,  and  the  machinery  for 
carrying  it  out;  legal,  educational,  and  commercial 
arrangements,  etc.  All  these  institutions  survive  their 
creators,  and  the  crowd  which  finds  itself  born  into 
them,  and  ignorant  of  any  state  of  things  without  them, 
becomes  so  completely  accommodated  to  them,  both 
physically  and  mentally,  that  it  feels  them  an  inseparable 
part  of  its  conception  of  the  world,  which  it  could 
not  imagine  without  them.  This  habit  on  the  part  of 
the  crowd  of  living  in  and  with  the  institutions  into 
which  it  has  been  born  will  long  afford  them  a  secure, 
almost  unassailable  position.  The  continued  existence 
of  any  institutions  which  have  already  existed  for  a 
certain  space  of  time  is  secured  by  the  early  stage  at 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  289 

which  habits  become  firmly  fixed  in  the  average  man, 
the  misoneistic  horror  with  which  he  regards  any  dis- 
turbance of  these  habits,  and  the  impenetrable  obsti- 
nacy with  which  he  opposes  any  attempt  to  change 
them.  Without  any  knowledge  of  the  psychological 
mechanism  of  this  phenomenon  of  adaptation,  organ- 
ized association,  or  misoneism,  Aristotle  perceived  the 
fact  empirically,  from  observation  of  reality,  and  ex- 
pressed it  clearly  in  the  words  "  To  enforce  obedience 
law  needs  only  the  force  of  habit."  1 

The  multitude  have  no  historical  sense;  that  has 
already  been  indicated.  They  know  nothing  and  care 
nothing  about  the  origin  of  things.  It  follows,  from 
their  incapacity  to  detect  underlying  connections  or  to 
trace  back  the  causes  and  effects  of  phenomena  beyond 
a  certain  distance,  that  all  existing  institutions  appear  to 
them  as  something  given,  whose  origin  is  lost,  like  that 
of  humanity,  of  the  earth,  of  nature  itself,  in  the  mys- 
terious unknown.  They  may  complain  of  them  as  they 
do  of  the  cold  in  winter,  its  hail  and  its  storms,  but  they 
accept  them  as  they  accept  everything  immutable.  The 
obscurity  of  their  origin  gives  them  a  mystic  character, 
with  which  religious  emotions  are  connected  by  the 
psychic  process  of  analogy.  Priests,  who  are,  as  a  rule, 
sedulous  servants  of  the  government,  rarely  its  oppo- 
nents, can  easily  describe  existing  institutions  as  or- 
dained by  God,  invest  them  with  a  supernatural  sanc- 
tion, and  demand  that  they  should  be  loved  and  rever- 
enced. A  system  of  public  instruction,  where  it  exists, 
will  assist  by  bringing  up  the  youth  in  the  same  views. 
The  necessity  of  existing  institutions  becomes  an  article 

1  "  Politics,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  5. 


290      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  faith,  which  is  either  proclaimed  as  a  dogma  or 
staunchly  defended  by  specious  sophistry.  All  the  in- 
tellectual influences  to  which  the  crowd  is  open  unite 
in  fostering  the  idea  that  any  criticism  of  existing  in- 
stitutions is  blasphemous,  stupid,  ignorant,  or  mad,  and 
any  attempt  to  alter  or  repeal  them  a  crime  against  the 
peace,  security,  and  happiness  of  every  individual. 

The  superior  man  reckons  with  the  organized  habits 
of  the  average  crowd.  His  egoism  employs  different 
means  for  its  satisfaction  in  an  old,  compact,  and  firmly 
established  State  from  those  applicable  to  the  simple 
conditions  of  primitive  barbarism.  He  no  longer  waves 
his  axe  above  the  head  of  the  individual  whom  he 
wishes  to  subdue;  he  does  not  even  permit  armed 
servants  to  spread  terror  before  them;  instead  he  mas- 
ters the  machinery  of  State,  and  thus  acquires  at  a  single 
blow  the  power  that  in  an  unorganized  crowd  could 
only  have  been  won  by  a  series  of  acts  of  violence 
directed  against  individuals.  He  disturbs  the  habits 
of  the  multitude  as  little  as  possible;  he  makes  them 
useful. 

The  parasitic  egoism  of  the  strong  man  assumes  the 
most  different  forms,  and  passes,  according  to  the  de- 
gree of  energy  it  possesses,  through  every  stage,  from 
the  lowest  desire  for  pleasure,  through  greed,  vanity, 
and  ambition,  to  the  hunger  for  power  and  that  inability 
to  endure  the  thought  of  resistance,  any  limitation  of 
personal  omnipotence,  which  is  allied  to  the  hypertrophy 
of  self  that  develops  into  megalomania.  One  is  con- 
tent with  small  satisfactions :  he  seeks  to  win  his  way  to 
political  power  by  his  pliancy  and  observation  of  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  men  who  are  its  guardians.     He 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  291 

is  the  typical  opportunist.  At  school  he  acquires  the 
good  graces  of  his  teacher  by  flattery  and  obsequious- 
ness ;  at  the  examination  he  studies  the  little  preferences 
of  the  examiners ;  when  an  official,  he  pays  court  to  those 
above  him;  by  means  of  invitations,  intrigues,  and  the 
influence  of  women,  he  becomes  an  academician,  obtains 
titles  and  orders,  and  ends  by  dying  as  a  pillar  of 
society  and  the  State,  respectable  and  influential,  sur- 
rounded by  toadies,  and  envied  by  people  in  general. 
Another  looks  higher:  he  would  not  receive  but  dis- 
tribute honours.  In  an  absolute  monarchy  he  attaches 
himself  to  the  person  of  the  ruler,  studies  him,  and  tries 
to  make  himself  indispensable  to  him — in  other  words, 
he  tries  to  master  him  and  use  him  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  his  own  will.  Under  a  modern  democracy  he 
comes  forward  at  popular  meetings;  is  at  pains  to  ac- 
quire an  influence  over  the  crowd  and  to  win  their  votes 
by  appealing  to  their  emotions  and  prejudices,  by  mak- 
ing promises  and  juggling  with  illusions;  at  the  same 
time  he  tries  to  force  himself  into  the  inner  circles  of 
the  leading  people.  Once  in  office,  he  continues  his 
activity  until  he  has  become  a  minister,  party  leader,  or, 
in  a  republic,  President.  Others,  though  these  are 
more  rare,  will  not  stop  short  of  supreme  power. 
They  do  not  employ,  or  not  to  any  great  extent, 
the  method  of  subservience,  but  rather  that  of  force, 
much  after  the  fashion  of  primitive  man — that  of 
mutiny,  rising,  military  revolt,  dictatorship,  coup  d'etat. 
They  are  represented  on  a  small  scale  by  such  men  as 
Nicola  di  Rienzi,  Jack  Cade,  Masaniello;  on  a  big 
scale,  and  on  the  biggest,  by  Oliver  Cromwell,  Wash- 
ington, Napoleon  I.  and  III.,  and  Louis  Kossuth. 


292     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

The  instinct  of  exploitation  that  the  man  of  will  and 
deeds  retains  enables  him  to  display  his  organic  superi- 
ority in  another  sphere,  in  other  fields  of  action,  when 
it  is  directed  to  the  amassing  of  wealth  by  speculations 
on  the  Stock  Exchange,  company  promoting,  the  forma- 
tion of  trusts,  cartels,  and  monopoly  undertakings. 
Mighty  financiers  manage  average  men  in  the  same 
way  as  do  politicians,  courtiers,  and  military  despots. 
They  begin  by  conjuring  up  illusions  and  intoxicating 
weak  heads  with  their  delights;  then,  as  their  power 
grows,  they  intimidate  some  and  rouse  the  cupidity 
of  the  others  by  rewards  and  promises,  purchase  useful 
allies  by  a  cleverly  graduated  system  of  shares,  and 
so  build  up  a  human  pyramid,  on  to  the  top  of  which 
they  climb  over  backs,  shoulders,  and  heads.  The 
amassers  of  gold  belong  to  the  same  family  as  the 
demagogue,  the  party  leader,  and  the  king-maker;  this 
is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  the  psychic  differences 
between  them.  Member  of  the  same  family,  but  a 
poor  relation,  an  unsuccessful  cousin,  is  the  professional 
criminal,  who  has  to  content  himself  with  the  poorest 
and  least  remunerative  form  of  exploitation,  because 
he  only  possesses  the  parasitic  instinct,  without  the 
intellectual  equipment  in  himself,  or  the  social  forces 
behind  him,  to  enable  him  to  satisfy  it  on  a  large  scale 
or  in  the  grand  style. 

All  these  activities  and  careers  conform  to  a  single 
type.  A  man  who  is  richly  endowed  by  nature  in  any 
direction  employs  or  misuses  his  superiority  in  order  to 
subjugate  others  to  his  will,  obtain  possession  of  the 
fruits  of  their  labour,  or  use  them  simply  and  solely 
for  his  own  profit  or  pleasure.     According  to  the  degree 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  293 

and  quality  of  his  superiority,  he  makes  them  service- 
able to  himself  by  compulsion,  fascination,  illusion,  or 
gross  deception.  To  take  a  few  examples.  The  poli- 
tician uses  the  parliamentary  system  as  a  ladder  up 
which  he  may  climb  from  being  a  secretary  to  a  mem- 
ber, parliamentary  reporter,  or  honorary  secretary  to 
some  political  club,  to  member  of  a  parliamentary  com- 
mittee, member  of  Parliament  itself,  party  leader,  and 
finally  minister.  The  scholar  can  use  the  organization 
of  the  University  or  academy  as  a  means  to  obtaining 
a  "position  and  reputation  independent  of  the  worth  of 
his  scientific  attainments.  The  financier  employs  the 
mechanism  of  the  Stock  Exchange  and  the  limited  lia- 
bility company  to  draw  the  small  competences  of  the 
many  into  his  net  and  combine  them  into  a  vast  fortune. 
Even  the  criminal  has  arrangements  at  his  disposal 
which  render  his  evil-doing  less  arduous,  such  as  the 
Mafia,  the  Camorra,  the  Mano  Negra,  and  the  unions 
of  thieves  and  burglars,  with  a  far-reaching  system  of 
division  of  labour,  that  exist  in  large  towns  and  are 
also  international  in  their  scope. 

From  the  psychological  point  of  view  all  institutions 
represent  organized  habits.  They  have  been  material- 
ized by  the  human  brain,  and  have  no  existence  apart 
from  man.  The  superior  man  must  therefore  approach 
men  through  habit,  and  try  to  turn  it  to  his  advantage. 
He  may  either  adapt  himself  to  it  or  try  to  alter  it. 
The  lower  order  of  aspirant  adapts  himself.  Rabagas 
acquired  reputation  and  influence  as  a  revolutionary,  but 
became  reactionary  when  he  attained  the  ministry.  The 
powerful  personality  alters  it:  Robespierre  found  a 
loyal  people,  and  taught  it  to  convey  its  king  and  queen 


294      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

to  execution  on  a  tumbril.  Yet  there  are  some  habits 
so  deeply  rooted  and  so  strongly  organized  that  no 
individual  can  stand  against  them.  Cromwell  failed 
to  destroy  the  habit  of  loyalty  in  the  English  people, 
which  made  the  Restoration  possible  immediately  after 
his  death.  Napoleon  could  not  overcome  the  habit  of 
religion  in  the  French  people,  or  avoid  a  concordat  with 
Rome.  Were  a  negro  of  the  highest  genius  to  arise  in 
the  United  States,  a  Napoleon  in  generalship,  a  Cavour 
in  diplomacy,  a  Gladstone  in  eloquence,  and  a  Bismarck 
in  strength  of  will,  he  could  never  attain  the  highest 
position  there,  because  the  habit  of  race  hatred  would 
ever  be  more  powerful  than  his  genius.  In  Russia  to- 
day it  would  be  impossible  for  a  Jew,  whether  he  had 
been  baptized  or  no,  to  rouse  a  mass  movement  like 
that  led  by  Lasalle  in  Germany  in  the  fifties  and  sixties; 
or  to  rise  to  the  premiership,  as  Disraeli  did  in  England. 
Each  time  that  a  personality  endeavours  to  subdue 
others  to  its  will  there  is  a  clash  between  this  will  and  the 
habits  opposed  to  it:  the  more  deeply  rooted,  general, 
and  essential  are  their  habits,  the  more  powerful  must  be 
the  will  that  is  to  overcome  them,  until  it  reaches  a 
limit  bevond  which  the  power  of  a  single  will  cannot 
go.  Napoleon  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  person- 
alities the  species  has  hitherto  produced.  Yet  he  was 
overcome  by  weak  contemporaries  like  Alexander  I., 
Francis  II.,  Frederick  William  III.,  and  George  III., 
because  they  were  supported  by  the  habits  of  the  whole 
of  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  France,  and  could 
demand  and  obtain  from  their  peoples  exertions  which 
even  Napoleon's  mighty  intellect  could  not  call  forth. 
It  is  necessary  to  guard  against  the  possibility  of  mis- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  295 

understanding.  All  the  preceding  examples  show  the 
exploiter  rising  above  his  fellows  in  order  to  satisfy  his 
desires  at  their  expense.  Nothing  has  been  said  of  the 
nobler  type  of  ambition,  which  strives  for  power  and 
influence  for  the  sake  of  serving  mankind,  and  is  im- 
pelled only  by  the  desire  of  making  the  world  better, 
more  beautiful,  and  happier.  The  reason  for  this  ap- 
parent omission  is  that  the  expression  "  superior  man  " 
is  used  in  a  purely  biological,  not  in  an  ethical,  sense. 
It  merely  represents  the  individual  who  is  equipped  with 
organic  energy  above  the  average,  especially  in  the 
sphere  of  judgment  and  will.  The  superior  man  in  this 
sense  uses  his  superiority  selfishly  for  his  own  advantage, 
not  selflessly  for  the  good  of  others.  That  this  is  so 
is  painful  to  anyone  who  seeks  to  see  history  as  gov- 
erned by  a  moral  ideal ;  but  it  is  an  observed  fact  which 
admits  of  no  exception.  The  selfless  friends  of  man 
are  not  opportunists.  They  have  no  ambition.  They 
are  incapable  of  making  incessant  efforts  to  subdue  the 
many  to  their  will.  Their  influence  is  confined  to  their 
words  and  example.  They  spend  their  lives  as  settlers, 
penitents,  or  teachers,  like  Buddha  Cakya-Muni ;  they 
are  crucified  like  Jesus,  or,  to  take  smaller  instances, 
burned  like  Savonarola,  or  hanged  like  John  Brown, 
the  enemy  of  negro  slavery.  The  influence  of  men  who 
wish  to  save  their  fellows  is  felt,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  through  others — disciples,  perhaps,  of  developed 
will-power,  who  work  for  some  reward,  real  or 
imagined,  earthly  or  hereafter;  or  rulers  and  politicians, 
who  find  something  in  the  doctrine  of  salvation  which 
they  can  use  for  their  own  selfish  ends.  Elaborate 
psychological  analysis  would  be  necessary  before  the 


296      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

rare  instances  of  the  use  of  power  by  those  in  authority 
for  the  good  of  their  subjects  could  be  ascribed  to  pure 
altruism.  Titus,  "  the  delight  of  the  human  race,"  did 
not  seem  so  benevolent  to  all  the  people  under  his  sway 
as  he  did  to  the  Romans.  Alfred  the  Great  was  cer- 
tainly a  benefactor  to  his  realm,  but,  in  giving  peace, 
order,  well-being,  and  education  to  his  disordered  State, 
he  was  in  the  first  instance  working  for  himself.  Joseph 
II.  is  probably  the  best  and  most  indubitable  example 
of  a  philanthropist  on  the  throne.  But  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  his  qualities  were  such  as  to  have  raised 
him,  by  his  own  strength,  above  his  fellow-men.  He 
was  Emperor  because  born  in  the  purple.  He  was 
the  inheritor,  not  the  founder,  of  a  dynasty.  It  is  on  a 
materially  lower  plane  that  the  altruists  who  combine 
strength  of  will  with  love  for  their  fellows  are  to  be 
found — St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  Pea- 
body,  Dr.  Barnardo,  Dunant,  perhaps  General  Booth. 
But  the  men  who  scale  the  heights  of  power  and  make 
their  mark  on  history  have  been  spurred  on  by  selfish- 
ness, and  delayed  by  no  backward  glances  at  their 
fellow-men. 

At  the  lowest  stage  of  civilization  there  is  probably 
little  difference  between  the  individuals  composing  any 
race  or  horde.  No  one  rises  high  above  the  others: 
exploitation  is  confined  to  the  family,  the  wife,  and 
growing  children.  The  arrangements  of  life  are  de- 
termined by  custom — that  is,  by  habit;  such  institutions 
as  there  are  exist,  not  to  afford  privilege  to  anyone,  but 
to  economize  effort  by  sparing  the  need  for  fresh  de- 
cisions; there  are  no  leaders  or  rulers,  or  they  possess 
small  dignity  or  power.     Another  case  where  mutual 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  297 

exploitation  within  the  race  or  people  is  impossible  is 
that  of  a  body  composed  of  individuals  of  remarkable 
judgment  and  will-power,  who  are,  to  use  the  phrase, 
a  match  for  one  another.  Such  a  community  is  super- 
ficially denominated  a  democracy;  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  a  loose  confederation  of  aristocrats  who,  impatient 
of  any  overlordship,  live  side  by  side  in  proud  and 
jealous  independence,  remaining  poor  because  each  is 
dependent  on  his  own  labour,  and  this  in  a  primitive 
State,  under  natural  conditions,  can  provide  the  bare 
necessities  of  life,  but  allow  no  one  to  become  rich. 
Such,  according  to  Vico,  was  the  condition  of  the 
Quirites  in  the  early  days  of  Rome.  History  teaches 
that  this  condition  of  things  did  not  last  long.  The 
gifted  people  overflowed  its  boundaries,  first  to  plunder, 
then  to  conquer;  it  made  itself  master  of  foreign  peoples 
of  less  force,  among  whom  it  formed  a  ruling  nobility, 
and  then  carried  out  the  exploitation  made  possible  by 
its  organic  superiority,  first  in  the  countries  it  had  sub- 
dued, then  in  colonies;  finally,  with  the  help  of  the  power 
and  riches  thus  acquired,  in  its  own  land  upon  com- 
patriots who  had  been  slower  and  less  adaptable,  and 
had  remained  at  home  in  poverty. 

The  limited  extent  to  which  the  multitude  are  able  to 
free  themselves  from  their  habits,  and  direct  their 
thought  and  will  along  lines  outside  their  organized 
associations,  not  only  makes  it  easier  for  the  superior 
man  to  master  and  exploit  them  with  the  aid  of  existing 
institutions  which  they  occupy  and  utilize;  it  also  renders 
it  possible  for  power  to  be  retained  by  individuals  who 
are  not  themselves  in  any  sense  superior  men,  and  never 
could  have  risen  above  the  crowd  by  their  own  strength. 


298      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Through  his  heirs,  whether  they  be  offspring  or  suc- 
cessors, the  strong  man's  superiority  is  continued  be- 
yond the  grave.  One  generation  of  the  multitude  hands 
its  habits  of  obedience  and  servitude  to  the  next,  and 
one  generation  of  mediocre  exploiters  hands  the  usufruct 
of  this  habit  to  the  next.  A  conqueror  secures  the 
crown  and  sceptre,  and  all  the  advantages  insured  by 
their  possession,  to  a  long  line  of  successors;  and  a 
group  of  successful  plunderers  transmit  to  their  remote 
descendants  the  privileges  of  a  noble  class  founded  on 
force.  The  crowd  is  so  completely  accustomed  to  see- 
ing power  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  dynasty  and 
nobility  that  they  regard  it  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 
arrangements  of  the  world,  without  which  they  could 
not  imagine  its  going  on.  The  dynasty,  the  nobility, 
and  the  high  official  class — so  far  as  they  are  not  the 
same — have  long  ago  lost  the  faculty  of  swift,  ready 
adaptation,  the  keen  sense  of  reality,  and  the  power 
of  will  and  judgment  that  belonged  to  the  creative  spirit 
of  their  ancestors;  but  they  remain  on  their  heights  by 
the  habit  of  command,  as  the  crowd  remain  in  their 
depths  through  the  habit  of  obedience.  They  have  no 
doubt  that  they  are  born  to  rule;  they  proceed  with  the 
same  confidence  with  which  the  crowd  follows  them. 
The  routine  of  government  will  often  go  on  for  a  very 
long  time,  and  not  appear  inadequate,  until  natural 
events,  the  progress  of  general  development  under  the 
influence  of  new  knowledge,  inventions,  or  discoveries, 
or  contact  with  some  powerful  and  creative  will,  necessi- 
tate judgment,  resolution,  action,  that  transcend  the 
traditional  routine.  Then  the  inadequacy  of  the  ruling 
class  and  the  decrepitude  of  the  institutions  created  for 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  299 

their  advantage  alone  stand  revealed.  The  old  order 
collapses,  and  a  new  arises  in  response  to  the  will  or  the 
advantage  of  a  new  ruler  and  exploiter. 

The  symbol  of  power  is  sufficient  so  long  as  no  actual 
exercise  of  power  is  demanded  of  it.  But  when  it  is 
required  to  prove  its  effectiveness  against  the  resistance 
of  dynamic  forces  it  refuses  its  office,  and  is  revealed  as 
what  it  is — mere  imagination.  The  mace  that  lies  be- 
fore the  Speaker  of  the  English  House  of  Commons  is 
an  excellent  defence  of  the  rights  and  dignity  of  the 
chair,  so  long  as  they  defend  themselves  and  no  one 
attacks  them.  An  irruption  of  soldiers,  such  as  that 
which  took  place  in  France  on  Brumaire  28,  or  an  in- 
cursion of  the  mob  like  that  of  February  24,  1848,  or 
September  4,  1870,  would  show  that  mace  in  its  true 
light — an  old-fashioned  bauble.  The  habit  of  the  many 
lends  to  the  gestures  of  those  in  authority  the  force  of 
actual  compulsion.  Not  until  that  force  fails  to  over- 
come decided  resistance  do  they  realize  that  it  has  no 
existence  outside  their  imagination. 

All  the  institutions  of  the  State  and  of  society  origi- 
nally correspond  to  some  definite  practical  purpose,  as 
to  which  no  one  is  in  any  doubt,  neither  those  who  create 
nor  those  who  suffer  from  them.  They  naturally  appear 
rationally  justified  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  those 
for  whose  advantage  they  are  created.  Very  soon, 
however,  they  become  a  part  of  the  general  habit.  No 
one  troubles  about  their  origin  or  remembers  what  their 
real  object  was.  The  result  is  that  the  institutions  are 
irrationally  administered,  used  for  purposes  quite  differ- 
ent from  those  for  which  tKey  were  intended,  or  treated 
simply  as  means  to  some  selfish  end.     Everyone  knows 


300     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

the  story  of  the  sentry  placed  beside  a  freshly-painted 
seat  to  prevent  anyone's  sitting  down  on  it,  who  was  then 
retained  for  many  decades  as  part  of  the  garrison,  al- 
though the  seat' had  not  only  long  ago  dried,  but  actually 
been  removed,  so  that  no  one  knew  why  a  sentry  should 
be  there  at  all.  This  story  would  epitomize  all  insti- 
tutions if  so  adapted  that  an  overseer,  specially  ap- 
pointed and  paid,  were  put  to  watch  over  the  freshly- 
painted  bench  instead  of  the  soldier.  This  overseer 
would  realize  for  a  few  days  that  he  had  to  warn 
passers-by  against  messing  their  clothes  against  the  wet 
oil-paint.  But  when  the  bench  dried  he  would  cease 
to  trouble  about  it,  and  devote  his  attention  to  winning 
favour  with  his  superiors,  and  retaining  his  post.  As 
time  went  on  he  would  quite  forget  the  duty  that  he 
originally  had  to  fulfil,  and  only  know  that  he  got  a 
certain  wage  every  month  from  a  certain  office.  Later 
on,  if  a  new  master  were  inclined  to  cut  down  this  in- 
comprehensible expense,  the  watchman  would  invent 
some  pretended  activity,  show  the  greatest  zeal  in  the 
execution  of  his  office,  and  probably  succeed  in  proving 
eloquently  and  convincingly  that  to  deprive  him  of  his 
salary  would  not  only  be  doing  him  a  grievous  injustice, 
but  seriously  undermining  the  foundations  of  general 
security. 

Private  interests  crystallize  round  every  public  in- 
stitution, and  then  defend  them  with  the  greatest  energy, 
and,  as  a  rule,  maintain  them  long  after  they  have 
become  useless,  and,  indeed,  harmful  in  many  directions. 
Conflict  arises  when  any  institution  is  subjected  to 
rational  criticism  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  nothing 
to   gain    from  it,    are   inconvenienced,    disturbed,    op- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  301 

pressed,  or  humiliated  by  it,  or  simply  take  exception 
to  its  purposelessness.  Men,  being  slaves  of  habit,  shut 
their  ears  against  this  criticism  as  long  as  they  can,  and 
even  become  irate  because  it  disturbs  them.  Those 
who  profit  by  the  institution  in  question  accuse  the  critics, 
with  indignant  contempt,  of  possessing  no  understand- 
ing or  knowledge  of  history,  and  show  them,  with  an 
air  of  haughty  superiority,  the  advantage,  necessity,  and 
justification  of  its  origin.  The  rhetoricians  and  sophists 
•retained  by  the  State  for  its  defence  in  the  person  of 
professors,  members  of  academies,  and  Privy  Council- 
lors, employ  an  abundance  of  learned  phrase  to  prove 
the  superficiality  of  the  criticism  and  the  insignificance 
of  the  critics  from  a  moral,  political,  or  social  point  of 
view.  They  are  right,  nevertheless;  for  when  once 
"  reason  has  become  nonsense  and  benefits  a  curse,"  as 
Goethe  said,  reason  in  the  past  is  no  adequate  excuse 
for  nonsense  in  the  present;  nor  is  an  existing  curse 
rendered  more  tolerable  by  the  assurance  that  it  was  a 
benefit  only  yesterday.  The  alert  rationalism  of  a 
minority  with  a  keen  sense  for  reality  is  as  a  worm 
gnawing  at  the  foundations  of  the  existing  order,  and 
perpetually  testing  their  strength.  War  is  permanently 
going  on  between  the  parasitic  selfishness  of  beneficiaries, 
and  the  immovable  sloth  and  incapacity  of  the  crowd 
to  trace  the  effects  of  an  institution  on  the  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other  the  keen  perception,  comprehension 
of  the  connection  of  complicated  phenomena,  hatred 
of  routine,  and  strength  of  will  of  the  few.  Victory 
falls  finally  to  those  who  display  the  greatest  energy 
in  that  fight.  The  worst  institution  has  never  perished 
from  its  own  inherent  badness;  the  most  rational  criti- 


302      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

cism  has  never  triumphed  by  virtue  of  its  rationality, 
unless  it  was  incorporated  in  a  personality  able  to  bring 
into  the  field  an  organic  energy  greater  than  that  pos- 
sessed by  the  defenders  of  the  bad.  Moreover,  the 
critic  requires,  not  a  slight,  but  an  immense  superiority 
over  the  defender  of  the  existing  order,  for  an  attack 
on  his  own  personal  interests,  his  own  income,  his  rank 
and  social  privileges,  rouses  even  in  mediocrity  an  energy 
and  enthusiasm  such  as  is  only  inspired  in  persons  of 
very  lofty  stamp  and  remarkable  force  by  the  unselfish 
struggle  for  improvement. 

The  history  of  mankind  is  composed  of  the  actions  of 
individual  men,  and  individual  men  are  roused  to  action 
by  a  single  instinct — by  some  strong  and  immediate 
need,  or,  to  use  a  more  general  and  psychologically  more 
accurate  expression,  by  some  pain  which  they  wish  to 
escape.  The  energy  of  their  action  stands  in  direct 
relation  to  the  violence  of  their  discomfort:  if  the  latter 
rises  to  pain  or  to  torment  and  intolerable  agony,  the 
energy  becomes  violent,  powerful,  even  heroic.  There 
is  hardly  any  difference  of  opinion  as  to  this  human 
mechanism  among  philosophers,  historians,  and  sociolo- 
gists from  che  earliest  to  the  latest  times.  The  fact  is 
more  or  less  clearly  seen,  and  expressed  with  more  or 
less  vagueness  or  definiteness,  in  them  all.  Aristotle, 
in  his  "  Politics,"  determines  the  end  of  the  State  to  be 
the  happiness,  eudaemonia,  of  the  citizens.  According 
to  the  Stagyrite  thesis,  all  the  activity  of  government 
and  society  is  directed  to  giving  the  citizens  feelings  of 
pleasure.  This  is  a  mistaken  substitution  of  positive 
pleasure  for  the  negative  avoidance  of  pain,  which  is 
the  only  benefit  which  is  asked  by  the  many  of  general 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  303 

institutions  or  can  be  afforded  by  them.  Apart  from 
a  few  hangers-on  of  the  court,  who  would  like  to  share 
the  plunder  of  the  greater  parasites,  and  obtain  offices, 
promotions,  and  privileges  at  their  hands,  the  citizens 
do  not  expect  happiness  from  the  sovereign;  they  are 
well  satisfied  if  he  impose  no  hardship  upon  them,  pro- 
tect them  against  acts  of  violence,  and  at  best  assist 
in  times  of  undeserved  distress  out  of  the  common 
fund — in  a  word,  if  he  protect  them  against  suffering. 
.  St.  Augustine  is  involved  in  the  same  obscurity  as 
Aristotle  when  he  speaks  *  of  "  happiness  "  as  the  fulfil- 
ment— or  highest  aim — of  all  "  desirable  things,"  and 
sees  in  it  the  lever  of  human  action.  No  doubt  every 
man  seeks  for  happiness,  consciously  or  unconsciously. 
In  this  general  sense  Aristotle's  eudaemonism  is  an  irre- 
futable truth.  But  mere  longing  for  some  imaginary 
state  of  bliss  seldom,  or  very  exceptionally,  rouses  him 
to  effort.  The  real  incentive  to  action  in  him  is  not 
an  imaginary  feeling  of  pleasure,  but  an  immediately 
realized  sense  of  discomfort,  which  rouses  him  to  defend 
and  free  himself.  Locke  2  has  expressed  this  with  in- 
comparable clearness :  "  The  chief,  if  not  the  only,  spur 
to  human  industry  and  action  is  uneasiness.  .  .  . 
What  determines  the  will  is  not,  as  is  generally  sup- 
posed, the  greater  good  in  view,  but  some  (and,  for 
the  most  part,  the  most  pressing)  uneasiness  a  man  is 
at  present  under.    .    .    .      The  greatest  positive  good 

^'De  Civitate  Dei,"  v.,  Praefatio:  "  Quoniara  constat  omnium 
rerum  optandarum  plenitudinem  esse  felicitatem." 

a  John  Locke,  "  An  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding," 
twenty-fifth  edition,  London,  1824,  book  ii.,  chap,  xx.,  p.  172,  para- 
graph 6;  chap,  xxi.,  p.  187,  paragraphs  29,   31,  37. 


304      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

determines  not  the  will  .  .  .  until  our  desire,  raised 
proportionately  to  it,  makes  us  uneasy  in  the  want  of 
it  .  .  .  because  uneasiness  alone  is  present,  and  it  is 
against  the  nature  of  things  that  what  is  absent  should 
operate  where  it  is  not." 

This  is  true,  and  Romagnosi *  might  just  as  well  omit 
the  last  three  of  his  "  four  laws  of  civilization  " — that  is 
to  say,  its  four  motive  forces — "  the  spurs  of  need,  of 
conflict,  of  balance,  and  of  continuity  " ;  for  the  last 
three  are  meaningless.  The  spur  of  need  is  enough. 
Herbert  Spencer  agrees  with  Locke  that  "  necessity 
alone  conquers  natural  indolence  in  every  sphere." 
Other  sociologists  and  economists  describe  the  motive 
force  that  dominates  human  action  in  different  words 
from  those  employed  by  Locke  and  Spencer,  but  their 
meaning  is  the  same.  J.  Lippert  ("  History  of  Human 
Civilization  ")  regards  the  preservation  of  life  as  the 
motive  force  in  history.  Ward  calls  the  motive  force 
"  desires,"  of  which  he  enumerates  five — self-preserva- 
tion, sexual  desire,  the  desire  of  beauty,  of  morality,  and 
of  intellectual  satisfaction.  Yet  all  these  instincts  and 
desires  are  but  special  cases  of  a  singje  instinct  or  de- 
sire— the  instinct  of  self-preservation  in  its  widest  sense 
— and  only  issue  in  action  when  they  are  powerful 
enough  to  be  felt  as  discomfort  and  an  acute  desire  for 
a  change  in  any  given  condition.  A.  Wagner,2  content, 
like  Ward,  to  enumerate  instances  without  proceeding  to 
general  laws,  finds  among  the  motive  powers  that  domi- 

1  "  Del'  indole  e  dei  f  attori  del  incivilmento,"  quoted  by  R.  Rocholl, 
"The  Philosophy  of  History,"  Gottingen,  1878,  p.  241. 

*  A.  Wagner,  "  First  Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  third  edi- 
tion, Leipzig,  1892,  vol.  i.,  p.  33  et  seq. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  305 

nate  human  action  the  struggle  for  education  (Ward's 
intellectual  satisfaction),  for  honour,  for  satisfaction  of 
the  conscience,  etc.  Action,  no  doubt,  does  proceed 
from  these  feelings,  but  only  when  any  one  of  them 
becomes  an  immediate  need.  Subject  to  this  limitation 
is  Bentham's  statement  that  "  well-being  is  the  object  of 
all  human  thought,"  and  Simmel's,  that  "  every  conflict 
for  economic  good  is  a  conflict  for  the  sensations  of 
comfort  and  enjoyment."  "  Well-being  "  and  "  sensa- 
tions of  comfort  and  enjoyment  "  cannot  of  themselves, 
as  Locke  has  shown,  initiate  action.  Gumplowicz * 
rightly  recognizes  need  as  the  driving  force  in  the  con- 
struction of  society  and  of  history  to-day,  without  ob- 
serving, as  may  be  mentioned  in  passing,  that  he  thereby 
refutes  his  own  theory  that  the  construction  of  society 
does  not  proceed  from  the  individual.  But  it  is  obvious 
that  a  need  can  only  be  felt  by  an  individual,  enter  the 
consciousness  of  an  individual,  and  rouse  an  individual 
to  action. 

This  view  is  in  no  sense  contradicted  by  Herbart's 
statement,2  "  The  forces  operative  in  history  are  in- 
dubitably psychological  in  their  origin  " — a  view  shared 
by  Jouffroy,  Auguste  Comte,  and  others,  and  expressed 
by  Lacombe  3  in  the  sentence,  "  Needs  appear  in  his- 
tory, not  as  biological,  but  as  emotional  desires :  human 
behaviour  reflects  psychical  and  not  biological  needs." 
This  is  true,  but  so  self-evident  that  it  need  not  be  said. 

1  Ludwig    Gumplowicz,    "  Principles    of    Sociology,"    second    edition, 
Vienna,  1905,  p.  204. 

*  "  Herbart's  Works,"  edited  by  Hartenstein,  vol.  vi.,  p.  33. 

*  P.    Lacombe,    "  De    l'histoire    considered    comme    science,"    Paris, 
1894,  p.  32. 


306      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

A  need  that  does  not  become  an  idea  in  the  consciousness 
may  excite  reflex  action,  but  not  considered  and  co- 
ordinated acts  of  will.  It  is  mere  play  upon  words  to 
express  the  fact  that  all  human  action  proceeds  from 
needs,  or,  rather,  from  feelings  of  discomfort,  in  the 
high-sounding  phrase,  "  Men  are  only  moved  by  spirit- 
ual forces,  by  ideas."  The  two  assertions  are  not  con- 
tradictory, but  identical.  Of  course,  the  feeling  of  dis- 
comfort must  be  an  idea,  the  need  must  be  an  idea, 
before  it  can  initiate  action.  But  it  is  the  need,  the  feel- 
ing of  discomfort,  that  initiates  action  through  the 
medium  of  the  idea. 

The  motive  force  of  pain  operates  in  accordance  with 
a  prescribed  form.  The  whole  of  life  is  a  battle  against 
sensations  of  immediate  discomfort;  every  action,  con- 
scious or  unconscious,  is  the  attempt  to  ward  off  some- 
thing painful,  or  modify  some  uncomfortable  condition. 
Man,  like  every  other  living  thing,  up  to  a  certain  stage 
endures  the  discomfort,  tries  to  adapt  himself  to  it  or 
put  up  with  it  as  best  he  may,  so  long  as  he  either  sees 
no  means  of  escaping  it  at  all,  or  only  a  possibility  which 
he  judges  to  be  beyond  his  powers,  too  dangerous,  or 
too  uncertain  of  result.  Such  judgment  is  to  a  great 
extent  a  matter  of  personal  equation.  The  weakling, 
the  average  man  who  hates  everything  new,  and  is 
ossified  by  routine,  will  submit  to  suffering  for  a  longer 
time,  and  will  offer  less  resistance  to  it  than  the  energetic, 
superior  man,  who  is  capable  of  new  combinations.  The 
former  timidly  clings  to  Hamlet's  view  that 

"  Makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of," 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  307 

or  comforts  himself  with  Pliny  the  younger  ("  Letters," 
vi.  2)  :  "  Mihi  autem  .  .  .  leviora  incommoda  quod 
assuevi  " — "  A  discomfort  to  which  I  am  used  is  less 
troublesome  to  me."  The  strong  man  refuses  to  be 
accustomed  to  his  pain;  fear  of  the  unknown  does  not 
reconcile  him  to  the  disagreeable  known.  A  point 
comes  when  even  the  most  insignificant  average  man  can 
and  will  bear  his  misery  no  longer.  As  Heinrich  von 
Kleist  puts  it  ("  Penthesilea,"  Act  XV.)  : 

"  Impatiently  man  shakes  from  off  his  shoulders 
A  weight  of  suffering  more  than  he  can  bear: 
Beyond  a  point  endurance  cannot  go." 

When  this  unendurable  point  is  reached  the  tortured 
man  has  but  one  thought — to  put  an  end  to  his  suffer- 
ings. But  here  the  inadequacy  of  his  brain  comes  in. 
Every  sufferer  is  distinctly  aware  of  the  fact  that  he 
suffers,  and  the  immediate  cause  of  his  suffering  is 
also  known  to  him:  he  sees  the  beadle  who  threatens 
and  maltreats  him;  he  sees  the  hangman  who  tortures 
or  executes  the  recusants,  the  agents  of  tyrannic  power 
ready  to  incarcerate  or  banish  those  who  fall  under  their 
displeasure;  he  knows  the  Customs-house  officer  and  the 
tax-collector,  who  wring  from  him  the  fruits  of  his 
labour  or  rob  him  of  his  possessions;  he  can  account 
for  all  who  cause  him  anxiety  and  humiliation,  oppress 
him,  disturb  his  habits,  hinder  his  movements,  offend 
his  sensibilities,  or  do  him  hurt  of  any  kind.  But  this 
is,  as  a  rule,  the  limit  of  his  comprehension.  His  in- 
tellect is  not  capable  of  going  behind  the  visible  instru- 
ment of  his  suffering  to  the  power  that  wields  it.  He 
does  not  perceive  the  connection  existing  between  the 


308      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

social  and  administrative  system,  the  characteristics  of 
a  ruler,  of  an  all-powerful  minister,  of  a  privileged 
class;  the  pressure  of  natural  forces,  and  those  who  in 
the  last  resort,  without  will  or  thought  of  their  own, 
carry  a  baneful  command  or  law  into  execution.  His 
hatred  and  indignation  are  therefore  hardly  ever 
directed  against  the  real  causes  of  his  sufferings,  but 
always  solely  against  the  passive  javelin  with  which, 
themselves  unseen,  they  pierce  his  body  or  his  soul. 
Direct  concrete  perception  leaves  him  in  the  lurch.  He 
is  reduced  to  imagining  possibilities,  to  forecasting  the 
necessary  effects  of  a  given  cause,  to  estimating  all  the 
chances  of  carrying  out  what  seems  to  him  a  useful 
alteration  of  existing  circumstances,  in  spite  of  existing 
institutions  and  the  powerful  interests  defending  them, 
and  in  opposition  to  the  habits  of  the  crowd.  This 
demands  a  highly  developed  sense  of  reality,  the  gift  of 
keen  observation — that  is  to  say,  sustained  and  con- 
centrated attention ;  it  demands  the  capacity  to  build  up, 
intellectually,  a  long  chain  of  real  and  logically  con- 
nected deductions,  and  to  eliminate  from  that  chain 
with  unwearied  watchfulness  the  arbitrary  inferences 
that  the  wandering  fancy  will  always  try  to  smuggle 
in  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  although  one  such,  if 
left  unnoticed,  will  vitiate  the  whole  train  by  rendering 
it  arbitrary;  it  demands,  in  a  word,  all  that  the  average 
man  does  not  possess.  His  efforts  to  free  himself  from 
feelings  of  discomfort  that  have  become  intolerable 
remain  therefore,  as  a  rule,  fruitless.  A  people  drained 
dry  by  taxes  will  maltreat  and  drive  off  Customs-house 
officials  and  tax-collectors,  and  burn  their  books  and 
desks.     Starving  peasants   attack  their  landlord,   and 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  309 

reduce  his  castle  to  ashes.  The  people  revolt,  and  fire 
and  destruction  follow.  The  result  of  those  misdirected 
and  spasmodic  movements  is,  as  a  rule,  that  everything 
remains  as  it  was.  The  sole  advantage  gained  by  the 
crowd  is,  at  the  last,  that  the  burden  is  shifted  from 
one  shoulder  to  the  other. 

A  rising  need  not  be  concerted,  nor  planned,  nor 
organized.  It  is  an  automatic  reflex  action.  It  breaks 
out  suddenly,  ravaging  and  laying  waste,  and  passes 
like  a  thunderstorm  or  whirlwind,  whose  path  is  strewn 
by  ruins  and  corpses.  Even  a  rising  premises  the  ex- 
istence in  the  dull  crowd  of  someone  whose  feelings  are 
stronger  and  his  reactions  more  energetic  than  those  of 
the  others.  He  is  the  first  to  raise  his  voice  and  fist, 
and  show  the  others  the  example  without  which  they  can 
do  nothing.  He  is  a  Cleon,  Jack  Cade,  or  Masaniello 
— simple,  thoughtless,  ignorant,  and  at  times  no  better 
than  a  beast  let  loose,  but  obviously  somewhat  more 
resolute  and  somewhat  less  ossified  by  habit  than  the 
others  are. 

A  revolution,  on  the  other  hand,  needs  leaders  and 
preparations.  It  can  only  be  the  work  of  superior  men 
organically  equipped,  in  the  first  instance,  to  develop 
new  ideas  and  combinations,  then  to  subdue  others  to 
their  will,  and  compel  them  to  recognize  them  unhesi- 
tatingly as  leaders  and  rulers.  The  first  premise,  there- 
fore, is  strength  of  will;  it  is  more  important  than 
knowledge,  prescience,  independence  of  thought — in  a 
word,  than  intellectual  superiority.  Thus  revolutions 
are  readily  aroused  by  enthusiasts  possessed  by  one  idea, 
or  men  who  are  decidedly  off  their  balance,  just  because 
this   mental   disturbance   rouses   wild   impulses   within 


310      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

them,  blinds  them  to  all  obstacles,  and  induces  them  to 
throw  caution  and  consideration  to  the  winds.  They 
gather  enthusiastic  crowds  around  them,  who  follow 
them  as  unsuspiciously  as  the  children  did  the  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin.  It  is  only  necessary  that  the  masses 
should  be  suffering,  and  the  leader  persuade  them  that 
he  will  free  them  from  their  suffering.  But  the  power 
of  command  cannot  long  be  exercised  by  a  strong  will 
and  a  diseased  brain.  It  must  shiver  at  the  resistance 
of  reality,  upon  which  its  possessor  had  not  reckoned, 
and  which  he  can  neither  avoid  nor  overcome. 

When  power  of  thought  is  combined  with  energy  of 
will,  the  leader  forms  rational  plans  which  he  endeavours 
to  carry  into  execution.  Then  the  revolution,  instead 
of  stopping  at  destruction,  issues  in  the  creation  of  new 
forms.  A  new  state,  new  institutions  and  laws  arise, 
and  their  creators  are  proudly  convinced  that  they  have 
converted  suffering  into  pleasure,  satisfied  painful  needs, 
and  given  happiness  to  a  section  of  mankind.  Soon, 
however,  usually  within  one  generation,  and  seldom 
much  beyond  it,  it  appears  that  the  -reconstruction  has 
been  based  upon  a  subjective  error,  and  fails  in  practice: 
the  needs  of  the  many,  far  from  being  satisfied,  still 
exist,  and  are  increasing;  the  painful  feelings,  if  they 
have  slightly  altered  their  character,  have  not  ceased  to 
be:  the  hopes,  the  castles  in  the  air,  the  dreams  of  bliss 
that  accompany  any  revolution  or  any  personal  en- 
deavour to  alter  an  existing  state  of  things,  have  given 
way  to  disillusionment,  disenchantment,  and  discontent. 
The  crowd  is  ready  for  a  new  undertaking  under  some 
leader  of  powerful  will,  who  promises  either  to  restore 
the  old  conditions,  which  always  seem  fairer  in  recollec- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  311 

tion  than  they  were  in  fact,  or  to  make  them  happy  by 
some  new  plan.  Thus  revolutions  are,  as  a  rule,  but 
halting  stages  on  the  path  trod  by  suffering  humanity 
on  the  way  towards  new  adaptations  which  are  to  make 
its  toilsome  life  easier  and  more  agreeable:  an  endless 
search  for  the  right  track,  and  an  endless  wandering 
from  it  that  cannot  be  avoided,  though  it  brings  the  goal 
no  nearer,  since  to  stand  still  with  one's  burden  is 
intolerable,  and  the  notion  that  one  is  doing  something 
fo  relieve  it  really  does  for  the  moment  give  a  deceptive 
sense  of  relief. 

Revolutions  do  not,  as  a  rule,  transform  anything, 
with  the  exception  of  the  hierarchy  of  rank.  Generally 
they  leave  everything  essentially  as  it  is :  the  weak  con- 
tinue to  be  exploited,  and  the  strong  to  exploit.  New 
modes  of  adaptation  to  what  is  disagreeable  prolong  the 
endurance  of  what  is  endurable.  Only,  other  individ- 
uals and  classes  take  the  place  of  those  individuals  and 
classes  hitherto  privileged  to  exploit.  Revolution  gives 
to  some  what  it  takes  from  others.  It  is  a  practical 
test  of  the  symbols  and  prestige  of  power,  which  are 
tried  and  found  wanting.  It  gives  the  strong  the  posi- 
tion inherited  by  the  weak  man,  who  maintained  it 
simply  because  his  strength  was  a  tradition  which  had 
never  been  tested.  It  destroys  an  appearance  which 
corresponded  to  no  reality.  But  its  effect  does  not  last. 
"  Red  men  are  white  men  on  the  way;  white  men  are 
red  men  arrived,"  as  Alphonse  Karr  has  said.  A  new 
order  soon  becomes  petrified  to  a  new  routine ;  the  new 
real  strength  soon  dissipates  itself  in  new  symbols;  new 
weakly  heirs  begin  to  live  on  the  prestige  of  new  strong 
ancestors.     A  long  period  of  time  presents  the  aspect 


312     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  a  succession  of  waves  of  more  or  less  equal  size. 
The  noisiest  revolutions  are  very  limited  in  their  effect, 
and  do  not  go  very  deep.  Tocqueville1  declares  that 
"  even  the  great  French  Revolution  has  had  far  less 
influence  upon  the  course  of  development  of  French  his- 
tory than  is  believed."  Lotze  2  lets  fall  a  stimulating 
remark :  "  The  unrest  and  variety  manifest  in  constant 
revolutions  and  reconstructions,  for  which  a  connected 
meaning  is  sought,  simply  represents  the  history  of  the 
male  sex :  women  make  their  way  through  the  storm  and 
stress,  hardly  affected  by  its  changing  aspects,  renewing 
with  perpetual  uniformity  the  grand,  simple  forms  of 
the  life  of  the  human  soul."  This  needs  one  limitation, 
however.  History  is  not  that  of  the  male  sex,  but  of 
a  small  section  of  it ;  what  Lotze  says  of  women  is  true 
of  the  great  majority  of  men. 

We  have  been  speaking  of  revolutions.  It  might  be 
objected  that  historical  advance  is  not  always,  perhaps 
not  even  mainly,  due  to  revolution,  but  to  at  least  an 
equal  extent  to  slow,  tentative,  and  peaceful  innova- 
tions, limited  in  extent,  directed  by  authority.  The  ob- 
jection would  be  invalid.  From  a  psychological  point 
of  view  there  is  no  difference  between  the  revolution  and 
the  cautious,  official  reform.  Every  innovation  breaks 
in  upon  habit,  and  compels  new  adaptations.  Even  the 
picture  on  a  postage-stamp  cannot  be  altered  without  dis- 
turbing someone  and  overcoming  some  opposition.    The 

1  Quoted  by  Robert  Flint,  "  The  Philosophy  of  History  in  France 
and   Germany,"  Edinburgh   and  London,   1874,  p.   313. 

'Hermann  Lotze,  "Microcosm:  Idea  of  a  History  and  Natural  His- 
tory of  Mankind — an  Attempted  Anthropology,"  vol.  iii.,  Leipzig, 
1864,  p.  49. 

f 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  313 

difference  between  revolution  and  reform  or  evolution  is 
not  a  difference  of  essential,  but  of  mass,  extent,  energy, 
rhythm.  Revolution  requires  greater  strength  on  the 
part  of  those  who  rouse  it  than  reform  does,  because 
it  has  against  it  the  weight  of  habit,  the  whole  routine 
of  life,  the  interests  of  the  powerful,  the  symbols  con- 
nected in  the  minds  of  the  multitude  with  the  ideas  of 
power,  legality,  order,  and  respectability:  on  its  side, 
only  the  superior  will-power  of  its  leaders,  the  sense  of 
discontent  of  their  followers,  and  the  adaptability  of 
the  young,  whose  habits  are  not  yet  stereotyped,  and 
whose  discontent  is  less  patient  than  that  of  the  older 
generation.  The  advantage  of  reform  is  that  it  can 
be  undertaken  with  smaller  powers.  It  is  set  going  with 
the  aid  of  the  whole  machinery  of  society  and  the  State, 
which  embodies  the  habits  of  the  multitude.  It  there- 
fore departs  less  from  routine,  offends  fewer  people,  and 
demands  less  new  adaptation  than  revolution  does.  But 
the  same  cause  operates  in  both — the  discontent  that  is 
felt  and  understood  as  the  need  for  change. 

This  need  must  be  conceived  in  its  most  comprehen- 
sive form.  It  may  be  of  a  physical  or  spiritual  nature. 
In  the  one  case  it  is  hunger;  in  the  other  some  longing 
or  some  aspiration  arising  from  within.  One  demands 
food  and  drink,  warm  clothing,  and  a  comfortable  place 
to  dwell;  another  leisure  and  recreation,  freedom  from 
care  for  the  coming  day;  yet  another,  beauty  and  luxury. 
One  suffers  from  not  being  allowed  on  all  occasions  to 
speak  his  mother  tongue;  another  because  he  must  obey 
command;  the  third  that  he  is  not  free  to  live  according 
to  the  belief  that  seems  to  him  his  most  essential  posses- 
sion.    Exceptionally  powerful  natures  demand  room  to 


3H     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

express  their  personality  by  overcoming  and  ruling 
others,  and  imposing  their  own  will  and  opinions  as  the 
law  governing  the  thought,  feeling,  and  action  of  others. 
This  feeling  and  recognition  of  a  subjective  need  that 
demands  satisfaction  is  the  driving  force  behind  the 
conqueror  and  the  creator  of  religions,  the  dictator  and 
party  leader  alike.  It  assumes  every  form — ambition, 
the  competitive  instinct,  the  desire  for  pleasure,  pride, 
impatience,  adventurousness,  revenge;  it  is  capable  of 
every  degree,  from  the  languorous  trouble  of  the  mere 
longing  reverie,  which  is  satisfied  with  a  vision  or  a  sigh, 
or  at  best  exhausts  itself  in  some  artistic  activity,  to  the 
racking  agony  that  seeks  relief  in  violent  deeds. 

Human  events,  from  the  greatest  to  the  smallest,  fall 
under  the  same  formulae,  which  are  always  determined 
by  the  same  psychic  laws.  The  fundamental  character- 
istic of  adaptability  is  common  to  every  living  species, 
and  not  confined  to  humanity.  In  the  case  of  average 
man,  it  is  limited  by  the  early  age  at  which  associations 
are  organized  and  stereotyped  into  habits :  superior  men 
retain  it  longer  and  with  more  freedom,  and  are  able  to 
dissolve  old  thought  complexes  quickly  and  easily,  and 
combine  new.  If  these  men  combine  unusual  strength 
of  will  with  their  power  of  personal  thought,  they  are 
the  predestined  rulers  and  leaders  of  the  multitude, 
whom  they  use  as  instruments  for  the  satisfaction  of 
their  needs,  binding  them  to  their  service  partly  by 
compulsion,  partly  by  promises  of  lightening  their  lot 
and  satisfying  their  desires.  Compulsion  is  exercised 
by  personal  force  or  by  the  weight  of  existing  institutions 
which  have  been  mastered;  but  in  the  last  resort  this 
appropriation  of  the  machinery  of  government  is  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PREMISES  315 

victory  of  superior  personality  over  the  men  who  contort 
the  machine.  All  action  proceeds  from  a  strongly-felt 
need;  its  direction  and  aims  are  determined  by  judg- 
ment based  on  experience.  The  more  scanty  are  men's 
experiences,  the  more  incompletely  they  are  understood 
and  retained,  and  the  more  erroneously  they  are  inter- 
preted, the  more  unsuited  will  the  resultant  actions  be 
to  satisfy  the  need.  Thus  human  life  is  a  strenuous 
process  of  rushing  from  one  painful  condition  to  another 
— :a  search,  for  the  most  part  vain,  for  the  satisfaction 
of  needs  that  are  always  stabbing  the  consciousness 
afresh.  But  as  ignorance  diminishes  and  knowledge 
increases,  the  possibility  grows  that,  if  not  the  average, 
at  least  the  superior  men,  and  an  increasing  number  of 
them,  may  be  freed  from  the  sense  of  pain.  Such  free- 
dom from  pain  has  almost  always  been  in  the  last  resort 
the  result  of  a  parasitic  use  of  the  exertions  of  others. 
Whether  this  must  always  be  so  will  be  considered  in 
the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS 

For  centuries  thinkers  have  raised  the  question  whether 
progress  exists.  Those  who  deny  it  are  as  numerous,  as 
eloquent,  and  as  well  supported  by  proof  as  those  who 
maintain  it.  The  ancients,  as  a  rule,  did  not  believe  in 
it.  They  had  a  vague  suspicion  that  the  world  proc- 
esses eternally  pursued  the  same  course,  which  they 
conceived  of  as  a  circular  movement,  perpetually  recur- 
ring to  the  point  at  which  it  started.  This  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Orphic  pictures  and  the  mysterious  teaching 
of  Linus,  and  it  is  the  view  expressed  in  their  different 
ways  by  Hesiod,  Heraclitus,  Democritus,  Empedocles, 
Plato,  and  Zeno.  Aristotle  says  clearly:  "  Everything  is 
a  cycle  .  .  .  the  age  of  man,  government,  and  the 
earth  itself  with  its  blossoming  and  withering  away." 
Thucydides,  too,  rejects  the  notion  of  progress.  Every- 
thing, he  teaches,  will  always  be  as  it  is,  so  long  as  men 
are  what  they  are — an  extraordinarily  superficial  way 
of  speaking,  one  must  remark.  Progress  surely  consists 
in  men's  not  remaining  as  they  are;  and  the  question  to 
be  answered  is,  precisely,  Are  men  as  they  were,  and 
will  they  always  be  as  they  are? 

The    Pythagoreans,    whose    mystic    astro-cosmology 
placed  everything  under  the  influence  of  the  stars,  were 
convinced  that  all  the  phenomena  of  the  world  and 
'         316 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  317 

human  life  must  repeat  themselves  down  to  the  smallest 
detail  whenever  a  precisely  similar  constellation  ap- 
peared in  the  heavens — an  astrological  form  of  the  cycle 
theory  of  the  Greek  philosophers.  Cicero  *  is  literally 
repeating  the  doctrines  of  his  Hellenic  teachers  when 
he  speaks  of  the  "  wonderful  cycles  of  political  revolu- 
tions and  changes."  In  so  far  as  the  ancients  admitted 
the  existence  of  change,  they  held  it  to  be  change  for  the 
worse.  The  Brahminical  doctrine  of  the  four  Yugas,  or 
ages  of  the  world,  held  the  earliest  Yuga,  said  to  have 
lasted  for  4,800  years,  to  be  the  most  perfect,  the  age 
of  truth,  and  the  omnipotence  of  the  gods.  In  the 
same  way  the  Greeks  and  Romans  placed  the  golden  age 
of  happiness  and  peace  in  the  past.  The  passages  in 
Ovid  (Aurea  prima  sata  est  aetas,"  etc. — "  Metamor- 
phoses," i.  89  et  seq.)  and  Horace  ("iEtas  majorum, 
pejor  avis,  tulit — Nos  nequiores,  mox  daturos,  Pro- 
geniem  vitiosiorem  " — "  The  time  of  our  fathers,  in- 
ferior to  that  of  our  grandfathers,  produced  our  in- 
ferior race,  to  give  birth  to  a  progeny  even  more 
despicable  ")  expressing  this  view  are  familiar  to  every- 
one. 

The  moderns  generally  took  a  narrower  view  of  the 
problem  of  progress :  instead  of  including  the  world  as 
a  whole,  they  limited  it  to  the  human  race.  Machia- 
velli  confined  himself  to  the  moral  issue.  "  The 
world,"  he  says  in  the  Preface  to  the  second  book  of 
his  "  Discourse  on  Titus  Livius,"  "  has  always  con- 
tained the  same  quantity  of  virtue  and  vice."  Jean 
Bodin  fully  shares  the  views' of  Machiavelli  and  the 

1  "  De   Republica,"    i.    29 :   "  Miri    sunt   orbes   ct   quasi    circuitus    in 
rebus  publicis  commutationum  et  vicissitudinura." 


318     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ancients.  Human  transformations — "  velut  in  orbem 
redire  videntur  " — seem  to  recur  in  a  cycle.  He  does 
not  believe  in  moral  progress:  the  quantity  of  virtue 
and  vice  always  remains  the  same.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  is  convinced  that  there  has  been  material  progress: 
his  own,  the  sixteenth,  century,  seems  to  him,  especially 
in  the  industrial  sphere,  to  have  surpassed  all  previous 
ones,  in  proof  of  which  he  adduces  the  sole — to  him 
sufficient — instance  of  the  new  art  of  printing.  Gioberti 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  notion  of  progress. 
At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  an  active  dis- 
pute *  went  on  between  those  who  supported  and  those 
who  opposed  the  idea,  turning,  however,  on  both  sides, 
solely  on  the  question  of  progress  in  the  sphere  of  art 
and  poetry.  It  is  noteworthy  that  even  then  many  able 
judges  of  undoubted  taste  upheld  the  superiority  of  the 
moderns  over  the  ancients,  although  but  a  small  part  of 
the  works  that  form  the  proud  possession  of  mankind 
to-day  were  then  in  existence.  Goethe  holds  that  "  men 
become  cleverer  and  more  intelligent,  but  not  better, 
happier,  or  more  effective  in  actior)." 

Another  great  poet,  Lamartine,  teaches  that  "  the 
notion  of  progress  is  a  dream,  a  Utopia,  an  absurdity." 
Schopenhauer  opposes  the  notion  of  progress  on  a  priori 
grounds.  "  Since  the  world  is  eternal,  the  theory  of 
progress  is  necessarily  false."  This  proposition  postu- 
lates what  is  not  proved,  and  is  incapable  of  proof — 
the  eternity  of  the  world.  If  the  postulate  be  admitted 
— and  it  is  impossible  not  to  admit  it — the  proposition 

1  Perrault,  "  Parallele  des  anciens  et  des  modernes,"  Paris,  1688. 
Cf.  also  Hippolyte  Rigaut,  "  Histoire  de  la  querelle  des  anciens  et  des 
modernes,"  Paris,  1856. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  319 

is  logically  irrefutable.  It  applies,  however,  to  the  uni- 
verse, and  not  to  humanity,  which  does  not  share  its 
eternity.  Lotze  cleverly  evades  the  obligation  of  de- 
ciding for  one  solution  or  the  other.  He  admits  prog- 
ress in  the  sphere  of  knowledge,  in  the  sense  of  the  slow 
discovery  of  the  unalterable  laws  that  govern  the  world. 
In  other  words,  progress  consists  in  the  recognition  that 
there  can  be  no  progress.  In  another  passage  ("  Mi- 
crocosm," vol.  iii.,  p.  29)  he  is  less  cautious,  and  admits 
frankly,  "  In  history  progress  is  hardly  discernible." 
Following  Vico,  who  revived  the  cyclical  theory  of  the 
ancients  in  his  "  Ricorsi  " — the  constant  repetition  of 
the  same  events — Odysse  Barot  teaches  ("  Lettres  sur 
la  Philosophic  de  l'Histoire")  that  "progress  is  the 
swing  of  a  pendulum,  perpetually  backwards  and  for- 
wards," and  development  "  the  ceaseless  recurrence  of 
the  same  facts  and  thoughts."  Fontenelle  finds  "  the 
heart  always  the  same,  the  intellect  perfecting  itself; 
passions,  virtues,  vices  unaltered;  knowledge  increas- 
ing." Fenelon,  that  worthy  optimist,  will  not  even 
admit  so  much.  He  maintains,  long  before  Rousseau, 
that  "  justice,  wisdom,  all  the  virtues,  belong  to  the 
semi-savage  state:  all  the  vices  arise  and  develop  with 
civilization." 

These  testimonies  could  easily  be  multiplied. 
Enough  have  been  quoted.  On  the  other  side  we  have 
Descartes  decisively  maintaining  the  reality  of  prog- 
ress. Bacon  x  has  no  doubt  of  the  superiority  of  the 
moderns  over  the  ancients — at  least,  in  science.     Leib- 

1  "  Novum  Organum,"  i.,  Aphorismus  84:  "...  a  nostra  state 
(si  vires  suas  nosset  et  experiri  et  intendere  vellet)  major  multo  quam 
a  priscis  temporibus  expectari  par  est.  .  .  ." 


320      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

nitz  *  is  not  quite  certain  whether  progress  exists:  "  The 
human  race  may  possibly  attain  in  the  course  of  time  a 
higher  degree  of  perfection  than  we  can  at  present 
imagine."  The  Abbe  St.  Pierre  naturally  believes  in  a 
glorious  unbroken  progress,  and  so,  which  is  more  sur- 
prising, does  Diderot.  Condorcet  boldly  calls  his  sur- 
vey of  history  and  the  philosophy  of  history  a  "  view 
of  the  progress  of  mankind,"  and  draws  a  fascinating 
picture  of  a  future  in  which  war  will  be  unknown,  the 
universal  brotherhood  of  mankind  realized,  communi- 
cation carried  on  by  a  common  lauguage,  and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  life  prolonged  indefinitely.  Reason  will  create 
a  paradise  for  mankind.  Condorcet,  moreover,  is  only 
developing,  with  superfluous  additions,  the  views  already 
expressed  by  Turgot  in  his  "  Second  Discourse  on  the 
Gradual  Progress  of  the  Human  Spirit."  The  point 
of  view  of  Turgot  and  Condorcet  was  shared  by  Kant 
and  also  by  St.  Simon,  whose  dreams  of  the  future  carry 
him  to  Paradise  itself.  Cousin  declares,  in  the  concise 
and  dictatorial  manner  he  imitated  from  Hegel:  "  His- 
tory is  the  development  of  humanity  in  space  and  time, 
and  the  conception  of  development  includes  the  notion 
of  progress."  Auguste  Comte  frankly  admits  the  fact 
of  progress,  with  the  reservation  that  it  is  no  unmixed 
blessing.  Its  tragic  aspect,  to  his  mind,  is  the  division 
of  labor,  which,  while  raising  man  above  the  animals, 
removes  him  from  nature,  and  consigns  him  to  depend- 
ence on  an  organized  society,  which  leads  to  exploitation 
and  other  evils  unknown  among  animals.  Michelet  sees 
the  whole  of  history  as  a  single,  permanent  progress 
towards  freedom.     Lubbock,  Tyler,  and  J.  S.  Mill  are 

1  "  TWodicee,"  iii.,  §  341. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  321 

likewise  convinced  of  progress;  Buckle  disbelieves  in  it 
in  the  moral  sphere,  but  accepts  it  for  science  and  knowl- 
edge. 

It  appears  from  this  hasty  review  that  the  belief  or 
disbelief  in  progress  coincides  with  optimism  and 
pessimism.  Robust  and  practical  people  like  the  ma- 
jority of  Englishmen,  gay,  self-satisfied  children  of  the 
world,  masters  of  the  art  of  life,  like  the  French,  in  the 
period  of  enlightenment,  see  the  world  au  couleur  de 
rose;  while  phlegmatic  dreamers  and  thinkers  who  live 
in  a  time  of  political  oppression  or  suffer  from  heavy 
misfortunes  of  their  own  see  it  in  a  gloomy  and  hope- 
less light.  One  must  then  believe  that  progress  or  stand- 
still have  no  objective  existence,  but  are  mere  subjective 
experiences,  dependent  on  the  temperament  of  the  ob- 
server, his  youth  or  age,  sickness  or  health.  Were  this 
correct,  it  would  no  longer  be  necessary  to  raise  the 
question  whether  progress  exists.  It  would  be  enough 
to  establish  that  the  constitution  of  human  affairs  ap- 
pears to  present  different  aspects  at  different  times  and 
in  different  places,  all  of  which  may  be  subjectively 
correct,  while  all  are  illusions  without  any  real  exist- 
ence. It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  it  be  not  possible 
to  distinguish  certain  objective  features  in  the  changes 
of  human  condition,  which  would  permit  a  judgment 
apart  from  arbitrary  subjectivity,  and  allow  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  general  law  applicable  to  such  changes. 

Before  trying  to  obtain  a  rational  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  progress  exists,  it  is  necessary  to  be  clear 
as  to  what  is  understood  by  progress.  Almost  everyone 
who  approaches  the  conception  gives  it  a  different  mean- 
ing, which  accounts  for  their  divergent  judgments.     As 


322     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

a  rule,  the  word  "  progress"  includes  the  idea  of  an 
improvement.  Paracelsus  says,  in  the  Preface  to  his 
"  Great  Surgical  Remedies  " :  "I  dedicate  this  book  to 
those  to  whom  the  new  is  worth  more  than  the  old, 
simply  because  it  is  new."  The  assumption,  far  from 
being  self-evident,  is  in  urgent  need  of  proof.  Why 
should  the  new  be  necessarily  better  than  the  old?  It 
may  very  well  be  worse,  and  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  al- 
ways considered  by  many  to  be  worse.  We  have  merely 
got  another  judgment  of  value  as  an  exclusively  subject- 
ive basis.  We  want  to  discover  some  objective  mark  of 
progress  about  which  there  can  be  no  difference  of  opin- 
ion. Such  a  mark  is  found  solely  in  the  fact  of 
change — or  development,  as  it  may  be  called — 
provided  that  development  is  not — as,  for  example, 
by  Cousin — identified  with  progress,  and  therefore 
given  a  higher  worth.  We  may  adopt  Herbert  Spencer's 
definition  of  development  as  the  increasing  differentia- 
tion of  a  thing  through  the  inclusion  of  new  elements 
(integration)  and  the  creation  of  new  and  more  various 
forms.  The  creation  of  new  forms  need  not  be  com- 
bined with  the  inclusion  of  new  elements;  it  can  accom- 
pany dissolution,  the  exclusion  of  old  elements.  Disso- 
lution is  thus  as  much  a  part  of  development  as 
integration,  and  this  should  put  us  on  our  guard  against 
regarding  development  as  synonymous  with  progress  in 
the  sense  of  increasing  worth. 

The  universe  is  never  stationary;  all  is  movement, 
«-arra  pet.  Heraclitus  put  into  words  a  fact  always 
known  to  man.  The  transition  from  the  establishment 
of  eternal  flux  to  the  idea  that,  in  the  eternally  changing 
picture,  the  last  condition  must  always  be  more  excellent 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  323 

and  perfect  than  the  former,  is  due  to  naive,  unconscious 
anthropomorphism.  The  real  idea  floating  at  the  back 
of  the  notions  of  progress  and  development  in  the  ordi- 
nary mind,  not  only  in  the  "  common  sense  "  so  derided 
by  philosophers,  but  among  trained  students  of  mental 
science,  is  something  very  remote  from  the  Spencerian 
interpretation  of  differentiation  advancing  through  inte- 
gration. The  motion  is  rather  of  an  ideal  form,  an 
archetype  towards  which  culture  is  developing.  Did 
any  such  goal  of  development  really  exist,  were  there 
such  an  Idea,  such  an  archetype,  the  question  of  prog- 
ress would  plainly  be  solved.  We  should  have  a 
standard  by  reference  to  which  we  could  immediately  de- 
cide whether  one  civilization  stood  higher  than  another. 
We  should  esteem  our  civilization  as  complete,  and 
speak  with  certainty  of  its  progress,  in  proportion  as  it 
closely  resembled  the  Idea  towards  which  its  develop- 
ment was  directed,  and  drew  near  to  the  ideal  to  which 
it  was  destined  to  attain.  But  this  notion  of  the  arche- 
type arose  from  observation  of  human  behaviour,  and 
later  of  living  matter  as  a  whole.  The  child,  small, 
weak,  and  imperfect  at  its  birth,  was  seen  gradually  to 
grow,  to  develop,  to  blossom  into  young  manhood  or 
womanhood,  and  attain  the  beauty  of  maturity.  There 
could  be  no  doubt  even  in  the  rudimentary  brain  of 
primitive  man  that  the  new-born  child  did  not  represent 
a  final  form,  but  was  predestined  to  grow  to  the  full 
stature  of  a  human  being.  Here,  then,  was  a  recog- 
nizable end,  to  which  the  changes  of  a  definite  creature 
were  directed.  The  grown-up  was  the  virtually  existent 
model  which  the  child  gradually  attained.  Moreover, 
there  could  be  no  question  that  the  grown-up  realized 


324     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

a  higher  and  more  perfect  type  than  the  child.  Objec- 
tively he  was  more  perfect,  because  he  was  in  every 
respect  more  effective  and  independent;  formally,  too, 
because  he  satisfied  the  logical  need  of  thought  to  see 
any  movement,  whose  beginning  and  whole  course  is 
present  to  it  in  idea,  carried  to  a  determinate  conclusion. 
Any  halt  short  of  this  goal,  or  any  deflection  from  the 
line  thus  laid  down,  causes  disillusionment  and  revolt, 
while  there  is  pleasure  in  the  conformation  of  idea  and 
realization.  Here  we  have  the  schematic  notion  of 
progress.  Man  saw  an  actual  evolution.  He  knew  that 
it  had  a  predestined  goal.  He  was  justified  in  regarding 
each  new  stage  in  development  as  a  step  towards  that 
goal.  Thus  he  naturally  identified  development  with 
progress,  and  progress  with  improvement,  and  intro- 
duced into  these  conceptions  a  judgment  of  value.  He 
then  applied  the  scheme,  formed  from  observation  of 
human  life,  to  animals  and  plants,  to  everything  that 
appears  incomplete,  grows  and  ripens.  He  had  a  cer- 
tain right  to  do  so,  inasmuch  as  the  idea  of  a  develop- 
ment that  is  at  the  same  time  a  perfection  does  super- 
ficially apply  to  all  living  things  as  well  as  to  man.  But 
the  apparently  unexceptionable  scheme  contained  fal- 
lacies which  the  human  intellect  was  not  yet  critical 
enough  to  discover.  The  development  of  the  living 
thing  does  not  stop  at  maturity.  It  proceeds  beyond 
it,  and  downwards.  It  leads  to  decay  and  death.  It 
is  arbitrary  to  see  the  rise  and  not  the  fall  of  the  curve 
of  development,  the  blossoming  and  ripening,  and  not 
the  withering  and  dying  down.  The  one  is  as  regular 
and  essential  a  part  of  the  whole  as  the  other.  There 
is  no  justification  for  taking  maturity  as  the  archetvoal 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  325 

condition,  for  life  moves  on,  through  bloom  and  matu- 
rity alike,  towards  death.  It  is  as  correct  to  maintain, 
as  Claude  Bernard  does  without  hesitation,  that  the  goal 
of  all  life  is  death;  that  the  archetype  towards  which 
every  living  thing  is  developing,  which  it  is  striving  to 
realize,  is  the  senile  being,  who  dies  and  decomposes 
with  the  exhaustion  of  his  vital  forces.  But  a  develop- 
ment leading  with  inexorable  necessity  to  destruction 
cannot  be  identified  with  progress  in  the  sense  of  per- 
fection. The  unconscious  influence  of  these  motives 
induces  man  to  see  the  goal  of  human  development  in 
the  individual  at  his  best  rather  than  in  his  shrunken  old 
age.  Firstly,  from  the  utilitarian  point  of  view,  life  is 
more  effective  at  its  highest  point  than  at  its  end. 
Secondly,  from  the  egoistic  point  of  view,  man  is  unwil- 
ling to  accept  the  idea  of  development  proceeding 
beyond  his  prime,  because  he  finds  more  joy  in  his  years 
of  blossom  than  in  those  of  decay,  and  would  therefore 
like  his  development  to  remain  stationary  there,  and 
proceed  no  farther.  Last,  but  not  least,  he  is  influenced 
by  the  subdued  ground  tone  of  sex,  which  sounds  in  his 
ears  in  life's  bloom,  and  dies  away  when  it  begins  to 
decay.  But  the  scheme  of  progress  as  improvement 
and  increasing  value,  outlined  from  the  observation  of 
the  phenomena  of  life,  is  incorrect,  because  it  supplies 
no  criterion  of  value  for  the  different  stages  of  life.  If 
the  aesthetic  satisfaction  of  the  looker-on  is  to  decide, 
many  will  place  the  charm  of  childhood  above  the  magic 
of  youth,  and  most  will  prefer  either  to  the  solid  virtues 
of  maturity.  If  the  degree  of  subjective  pleasure  is  to 
be  the  standard,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  youth  is 
preferable  to  maturity,  although  no  thinker,  however 


326      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

casual,  would  take  youth  rather  than  maturity  to  be  the 
goal  of  human  development.  Thus  the  very  movement 
of  life  itself  from  one  stage  to  the  next,  which  suggested 
to  men  the  notion  of  progress,  does  not,  on  closer  exam- 
ination, justify  the  identification  of  progress  with  im- 
provement and  increasing  value. 

And  to  transpose  a  scheme  of  progress  based  on  the 
phenomena  of  life  to  the  world  as  a  whole  is  utterly 
false.  Only  the  most  naive  anthropomorphism  could 
draw  such  an  analogy.  It  premises  that  the  universe 
possesses  an  ideal  of  its  own  perfection,  related  to  it  as 
maturity  is  related  to  infancy,  and  that  it  is  developing, 
like  the  infant,  towards  this  goal,  this  maturity  of  some 
sort.  No  single  observed  fact  justifies  the  assumption 
that  the  universe  is  developing  towards  some  riper,  more 
complete  form  as  its  goal;  on  the  contrary,  all  astro- 
physical  observation  compels  the  belief  that  in  the  uni- 
verse determined  processes  follow  regularly  upon  one 
another,  and  the  heavenly  bodies  pass  in  permanent 
flux  through  a  series  of  forms  that  dissolve  into  one 
another  in  an  apparently  immutable  order.  Primary 
vapour  rotates,  thickens,  grows  hot/  and  divides  into 
sun  and  planets;  these,  originally  fluid  drops,  harden; 
the  system  gradually  spreads  the  heat  that  has  drawn 
it  together  over  the  universe,  then  cools  off  and  congeals, 
until,  after  long  periods  of  time,  it  collides  with  other 
systems,  and  is  thereby  plunged  into  conflagration  anew 
— Nova  Persei  occurs  to  the  mind — melts,  evaporates, 
and  dissipates,  and  returns  to  primitive  vapour,  to  be 
driven  in  a  new  direction,  and,  animated  by  an  altered 
velocity,  to  begin  the  whole  process  again.  We  call  this 
course  of  events  the  rising  and  setting  of  worlds,  but 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  327 

without  a  trace  of  objective  justification.  Nothing  rises 
and  nothing  sets.  Primary  vapour  is  inspired  by  the 
same  energy  as  the  system  of  separate  planets  round  a 
sun:  the  laws  that  determine  the  collision  of  two  sys- 
tems and  their  return  to  primary  vapour  are  the  same 
that  regulate  the  formation  of  the  solar  and  planetary 
system  from  primary  vapour.  The  one  state  has  the 
same  dignity,  the  same  value,  as  the  other.  Both  are 
but  different  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  regular 
process.  If  the  system  of  sun  and  planets  represents 
Teal  existence  to  us,  and  primary  vapour  chaos,  and 
we  regard  the  return  of  the  system  to  primary  vapour 
as  its  end,  that  is  but  another  result  of  the  unconscious 
egoism  that  dominates  our  thought.  Because  we  live 
upon  a  planet,  and  do  not  find  in  primary  vapour  the 
conditions  of  our  life,  of  the  only  life  that  is  known  to 
us,  we  regard  the  development  of  a  system  of  sun  and 
planets  as  the  goal  of  all  forces  operative  in  the  universe, 
and  primary  vapour  as  an  end  of  all  things  and  of  all 
being.  We  make  our  life  the  criterion  of  the  cosmic 
process,  and,  assigning  high  value  to  what  is  advan- 
tageous to  it,  and  a  low  value  to  what  is  incompatible 
with  it,  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  world  goes  on 
its  way  without  regard  for  us,  and  that  all  the  forces 
in  the  universe  are  incessantly  and  regularly  at  work, 
whether  mankind  exist  or  no.  Schopenhauer's  argument 
that,  since  the  world  is  eternal,  every  development  must 
already  have  reached  its  goal  within  eternity,  sufficiently 
proves  the  meaninglessness  of  the  notion  of  develop- 
ment as  applied  to  the  world.  The  Spencerian  formula 
is  inadequate,  since  the  course  of  cosmic  conditions  is 
neither  differentiation,  nor  integration,  nor  dissociation, 


328      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

but  a  continual  movement,  an  eternal  cycle  whose 
rhythm  is  always  the  same.  It  is  invalid  to  select  certain 
sections  of  the  cycle,  certain  periods  of  the  rhythm,  as 
being  better,  more  complete.  Individual  periods  are 
only  better  or  more  complete  in  reference  to  us,  and  if 
we  cease  to  look  at  them  in  relation  to  ourselves,  to 
humanity,  and  the  processes  of  life,  there  is  no  longer 
any  justification  for  assigning  a  higher  value  to  the 
amalgamation  of  matter  into  spherical  bodies  than  to 
their  regular  dispersion  through  vaporous  space;  or  for 
seeing  any  superiority  in  a  glowing  sun  and  planets, 
capable  of  heat,  and  containing  air  and  water,  over 
an  extinct  sun  and  scorified  planets  without  air  or 
water. 

The  universe  thus  affords  absolutely  no  place  for  de- 
velopment, and  still  less  for  progress,  in  the  sense  of 
gradual  perfection.  All  known  facts  compel  a  reason 
which  is  closed  against  mystic  reverie  to  assume  an 
eternal,  regular,  cyclic  movement  perpetually  passing 
through  similar  phases,  and  to  reject  as  irrational  the 
idea  of  a  goal  to  which  the  earth  is  constantly  progress- 
ing. The  notion  of  progress,  derived  from  the  specta- 
cle of  the  stages  of  living  things,  is  strictly  limited  in 
its  application  to  those  living  things.  From  the 
hedonistic  standpoint,  which  regards  pleasure  as  the 
only  recognizable  purpose  of  life,  youth  and  early  man- 
hood, as  the  period  of  life  which  is  richest  in  conscious 
feelings  of  pleasure,  must  be  admitted  to  be  the  most 
beautiful  in  the  existence  of  the  individual,  and  devel- 
opment towards  that  stage  recognized  as  a  real  progress, 
so  far  as  conscious  pleasure  is  concerned.  At  the  same 
time  we  must  be  extraordinarily  careful  in  extending 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  329 

this  point  of  view  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  individ- 
ual existence,  and  even  in  applying  it  to  humanity  as  a 
whole.  The  hedonistic  criterion  here  ceases  to  be  valid. 
Humanity,  as  has  been  repeatedly  pointed  out  in  pre- 
vious sections,  is  an  abstraction;  it  is  by  a  merely 
rhetorical  simile  that  we  look  upon  it  as  an  individuality, 
a  person  passing  through  childhood,  youth,  maturity, 
and  old  age.  Every  man  born  and  normally  developed 
goes  through  the  same  periods  of  life;  everyone  knows 
"childhood,  youth,  maturity,  and  grey  hairs  whether  he 
lived  at  the  first  appearance  of  the  species  upon  earth, 
lives  to-day,  or  will  live  a  million  years  hence.  But  there 
cannot  be  any  special  age  of  mankind  characterized,  as 
are  the  youth  or  old  age  of  the  individual,  by  feelings 
of  pleasure  or  pain.  We  speak  of  happy  or  unhappy 
historical  epochs,  but  that  is  a  generalization  that  does 
not  touch  the  individual.  In  the  reign  of  Antoninus 
Pius,  according  to  contemporary  testimony  one  of  the 
few  halcyon  ages  recorded  by  the  memory  of  man,  there 
was  sickness  and  death,  and  individuals  must  have  com- 
plained and  felt  the  misery  of  disease  and  old  age.  At 
the  time  of  the  Black  Death  and  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  probably  the  dreariest  period  in  the  last  thousand 
years,  there  were  young  people  who  rejoiced  in  life  and 
youth.  No  one  historical  epoch  can  be  called  happier 
than  another,  nor  can  the  development  from  one  to 
another  be  regarded  as  progress,  from  the  hedonistic 
point  of  view. 

If  we  are  to  hold  to  the  notion  of  progress  within 
the  limits  of  human  life,  we" must  seek  some  other  cri- 
terion than  the  hedonistic.  For  that  purpose  morality 
has  often  been  suggested.     It  is  maintained  that,  from 


330      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

one  generation  to  another,  from  one  age  to  another, 
conscience  becomes  more  subtle,  sensitive,  and  clamant, 
sense  of  duty  more  profound  and  compelling,  and  horror 
of  violence  and  injustice  more  immediate  and  pro- 
nounced. Unless  it  be  held  that  the  gradual  transition 
from  evil  to  good,  from  vice  and  crime  to  virtue,  from 
indifference  to  love,  consideration  and  pity  for  one's  fel- 
lows, really  represents  no  change  from  the  point  of  view 
of  worth,  or  even  that  it  represents  a  deterioration  of 
the  human  type  by  making  it  less  efficient  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  this  change  must  be  admitted 
to  be  a  development  forwards  and  upwards — a  prog- 
ress. 

But  this  moral  criterion  is  uncertain.  One  objection 
occurs  immediately,  and  has  already  been  briefly  indi- 
cated. From  the  social  point  of  view  the  more  moral 
man  is  doubtless  more  perfect  than  the  less  moral;  the 
greater  his  consideration  for  his  fellows — and  that  is 
what  morality  really  amounts  to  when  freed  from  its 
mystical  wrappings — the  more  easy  and  pleasant  are  his 
relations  with  them.  But  the  greater  peace,  the  more 
restful  comfort  that  may  be  acquired  by  this  morality, 
may  be  bought  too  dear  at  the  price  of  a  diminution 
of  his  resolution,  of  his  healthy  egoism  and  his  instinc- 
tive vitality — of  all  those  characteristics  whose  main- 
tenance is  the  condition  of  an  enhanced  and  fully-devel- 
oped personality.  Advancing  morality  can  thus  be 
regarded  as  progress  only  if  the  ideal  human  develop- 
ment be  social  or  not  individual.  This  postulate  is 
accepted  by  some,  rejected  by  others.  There  are  equally 
strong  arguments  both  for  and  against.  But,  apart 
from  the  fundamental  objection  that  advancing  morality 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  331 

does  not  necessarily  denote  progress  from  the  anthropo- 
logical, though  it  may  from  the  social  point  of  view, 
there  remains  the  preliminary  question  whether  the 
course  of  history  does  display  such  an  increase  in 
morality. 

At  the  first  glance  it  seems  incontestable.  Many  of 
the  enormities  of  earlier  days  have  completely  disap- 
peared from  civilized  life.  Cannibalism,  which  once 
prevailed  all  over  the  world,  is  now  confined  to  the  most 
backward  of  savage  tribes.  Prisoners  of  war  are  not 
tortured  and  killed  nowadays,  but  treated  honourably, 
and  all  their  wants  attended  to.  The  stranger,  instead 
of  being  an  outlaw,  is  protected  in  every  civilized 
State  by  treaties  and  the  law.  It  is  no  longer  possible 
for  the  mighty  openly  and  with  impunity  to  sacrifice 
the  honour  and  life  of  the  weak  to  their  own  whims. 
Crimes  of  violence  are  on  the  decline.  The  value  of 
human  life  is  more  highly  rated.  None  of  these  facts 
need  be  denied  or  questioned.  But  they  are  capable 
of  various  interpretations. 

All  comparisons  between  the  present  and  any  former 
stage  of  civilization  rest  upon  statistics,  which  enu- 
merate and  index  facts,  but  have  no  access  to  spiritual 
impulses  and  efforts.  The  fact  that  fewer  acts  are 
committed  which  the  law  regards  as  offences  or  crimes 
is  not  necessarily  a  proof  of  loftier  morality.  It  may  be 
a  consequence  of  weakness  of  will  and  indolence.  It 
may  likewise  be  connected  with  the  fact  that  in  a  better- 
ordered  State  there  is  more  supervision,  and  every  trans- 
gression is  immediately  discovered,  tracked  down,  and 
punished,  so  that  the  individual  walks  in  wholesome 
dread    of    an    ever-watchful    and    present    authority. 


33a      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Within  his  consciousness,  alone  with  his  instincts  and 
passions,  civilized  man  is  no  more  mora!  than  the  sav- 
age, and  man  to-day  probably  no  different  from  man 
in  the  earliest  Stone  Age.  In  what  way  is  the  anarchist, 
who  hurls  a  bomb  regardless  whether  it  tear  women 
and  children  in  pieces,  superior  to  the  wild  warrior  who 
fell  upon  the  enemy  at  night,  and  butchered  men, 
women,  and  children?  The  anarchist  is  admittedly  in- 
spired by  what  he  holds  to  be  a  beautiful  and  glorious 
idea,  but  the  wild  slaughterer  is  likewise  convinced  that 
his  action  is  splendid  and  heroic,  and  the  bards  of  his 
race  support  him  in  this  view  by  their  panegyrics.  Each 
follows  his  own  impulse  and  satisfies  himself,  without 
a  thought  of  those  who  are  sacrificed.  Is  the  speculative 
company  promoter,  who  amasses  hundreds  of  millions, 
robs  thousands  of  families  of  their  all  in  cold  blood, 
and  drives  them  to  misery  and  despair,  even  to  suicide, 
while  he  enriches  himself  with  the  fruits  of  their  life's 
toil,  any  less  guilty  of  robbery  and  butchery  than  the 
Sultan  of  Wadi-Halfa,  who  enslaved  or  executed  the 
whole  population  of  vast  territories,  ,and  appropriated 
all  their  possessions?  Does  he  feel  any  more  consid- 
eration for  his  fellows  than  did  the  medieval  Viking, 
who  attacked  the  foreign  coast  with  fire  and  sword, 
plunder  and  rapine?  History  records  no  enormity 
which  cannot  be  paralleled  in  the  near  past  or  in  the 
present.  The  most  appalling  atrocities  of  the  French 
Jacquerie  reappeared  during  the  rising  of  the  Esthnic 
and  Lettish  peasants  in  the  East  Russian  provinces  in 
1906.  The  cruelties  of  the  Armagnacs  and  extortioners 
during  the  Thirty  Years'  War  were  repeated  in  the 
Spanish  wars  of  Napoleon,  in  the  Kurdish  raids  against 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  333 

the  Armenians,  and  the  incursions  of  the  robber  bands 
in  Macedonia.  Marius,  whose  acknowledgment  or  re- 
fusal of  salutations  when  he  entered  Rome  signified  life 
or  death,  was  no  more  blood-thirsty  than  Rosas  in 
Argentine,  Lopez  in  Paraguay,  or  Castro  in  Venezuela. 
The  same  evil  spirits  inhabit  the  soul  of  man  to-day 
as  in  the  days  of  our  forefathers,  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  years  ago.  The  chains  that  bind  them  are 
stronger;  they  are  the  ordinances  of  the  State.  But 
-let  them  be  once  unfastened  or  even  relaxed,  and  the 
demons  will  break  out  with  cries  as  wild  and  rage  as 
fearsome  as  of  old.  What,  then,  of  moral  progress? 
The  crowd  has  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  there  is  no 
such  thing.  Every  proverb,  every  popular  saying, 
speaks  of  the  past  as  a  golden  age,  especially  in  morals, 
and  praises  the  simple  honesty  and  righteousness  of 
their  ancestors  at  the  expense  of  the  falsity  and  faith- 
lessness of  their  descendants. 

If  we  would  estimate  human  progress,  we  must  lay 
aside  the  criteria  of  happiness  or  morality;  a  third  may 
serve  us — that  of  technical  invention.  What  a  gap 
between  the  little  oil-lamp  and  pinewood  torch  and 
electric  light!  between  the  kindling  of  fire  by  the  tinder 
and  by  a  match !  between  travelling  on  foot,  horseback, 
or  on  a  raft,  and  in  the  electric  train  or  turbine  steamer ! 
between  sending  a  message  on  foot  and  by  means  of 
telegraph  and  telephone!  between  the  club  and  axe  of 
stone  and  the  revolver,  machine-gun,  torpedo,  and 
armoured  cruiser!  Why  prolong  a  recital  that  every 
educated  man  can  complete  for  himself?  Here,  prog- 
ress is  undeniable.  It  certainly  connotes  no  advance  in 
morality;  the  master  of  all  the  technical  inventions  of 


334      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

modern  times  is  not  necessarily  any  the  better  for  them. 
They  may,  under  certain  circumstances,  make  it  easier 
for  him  to  satisfy  his  criminal  selfishness.  They  do 
tempt  him  to  abuse  his  superiority.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  each  invention  is  the  cause  of  new  misdeeds  that 
could  not  have  been  carried  out  at  all,  or  not  so  easily, 
with  less  perfect  instruments.  Nor  does  it  signify  any 
enhancement  of  human  happiness.  Ignorance  and  indi- 
gence may  permit  man  more  subjective  satisfaction  than 
the  most  advanced  civilization.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  many  inventions  create,  or  at  least  increase  and 
spread,  the  needs  for  which  they  provide  elegant  satis- 
factions ;  and  therefore  men,  unaware  of  the  needs  thus 
met,  did  not  suffer  from  them.  Moreover,  all  the  me- 
chanical marvels  of  the  present  only  provide  a  small 
minority  with  new  pleasures  from  which  the  vast  ma- 
jority are  excluded.  The  train  de  luxe  which  makes 
travelling  a  choice  pleasure  for  the  rich,  carries  the  poor 
man  only  as  stoker  or  brakeman,  in  which  case  he  is 
little  better  off  than  the  driver  or  postillion  of  the  past. 
Bank-books  and  cheques  make  the  management  and  use 
of  money  much  more  convenient  than  in  the  old  days, 
when  it  had  to  be  carried  in  a  bag;  but  the  man  who 
has  no  money  had  no  money-bag  then,  and  knows  noth- 
ing of  bank-books  and  cheques  to-day.  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  pursue  the  relation  of  the  many  and  the  few  into 
every  invention.  Not  the  whole  of  humanity,  not  even 
the  whole  of  civilized  peoples,  profit  even  by  those 
achievements  whose  influence  extends  far  beyond  their 
immediate  effects.  The  mechanism  of  international 
trade  to-day  certainly  prevents  famine  in  any  country 
so  long  as  food  is  available  for  export  from  any  other 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  335 

spot  on  the  surface  of  the  globe.  But  in  early  days 
famine  exercised  its  devastating  sway  only  at  long  in- 
tervals, between  which  there  were  often  considerable 
periods  of  superfluity;  whereas  to-day  an  excessive  pro- 
portion of  the  population  of  our  towns — the  "  sub- 
merged tenth "  of  the  English  economists — perma- 
nently suffer  from  famine,  while  the  days  of  superfluity 
are  now  unknown.  Details  apart,  it  may  be  generally 
affirmed  that  morality  and  happiness  or  pleasure  are  in 
no  sense  dependent  on  technical  invention.  Men  can 
be  moral,  and  feel  happy  and  content,  in  a  condition 
of  barbarism  and  ignorance,  while  the  most  profound 
moral  depravity,  a  spiritual  suffering  to  which  death 
comes  as  a  relief,  and  the  extremity  of  brute  wretched- 
ness may  accompany  all  the  wonders  of  mechanical 
science  and  the  most  advanced  contest  over  steam 
and  electricity.  If,  then,  some  who  despise  the 
world  and  have  mastered  life  refuse  to  technical  prog- 
ress any  value  for  humanity,  and  even  deny  it  recog- 
nition as  progress  at  all,  the  point  of  view,  paradoxi- 
cal as  it  may  seem  at  a  first  glance,  can  readily  be 
defended. 

But  if  doubt  is  possible  as  to  the  immediate  advan- 
tage of  inventions  and  discoveries  to  the  great  majority 
of  mankind,  one  thing  is  not  open  to  doubt  or  to  argu- 
ment— that  they  are  at  once  the  result  and  the  proof 
of  a  wider  and  more  profound  knowledge.  And  here 
at  last  we  have  a  real  criterion  of  progress,  and  one 
which  enables  us  to  establish  the  existence,  not  simply  of 
mere  movement,  entitling  us^  to  pass  no  judgment  of 
value,  nor  of  a  mere  change  in  the  relation  of  man  to 
nature,  but  of  progress  itself. 


336      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

Since  civilization  began  men  have  been  incessantly 
perfecting  their  method  of  observing  and  recording 
phenomena,  in  order  to  penetrate  more  deeply  into  their 
connection  and  comprehend  their  laws.  The  transition 
from  the  blackest  ignorance  to  clearer  and  more  ex* 
tensive  knowledge  may  have  been  quicker  or  slower, 
more  or  less  limited  in  its  range;  but  it  has  hitherto 
never  stood  still.  No  single  invention  of  utility  to  man 
has  ever  been  lost,  no  single  truth  worth  knowing  ever 
forgotten  after  it  has  once  been  learned.  There  is  some- 
thing quite  visionary  in  the  notion  now  and  then  met 
with  which  ascribes  to  certain  classes  in  earlier  times, 
such  as  the  Egyptian  priests,  or  to  individuals,  like  the 
adept  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  eighteenth  century,  a 
secret  knowledge  that  was  buried  with  them.  The  tem- 
ples at  Thebes  were  not  lit  by  electric  light ;  the  statues 
of  the  Gods  did  not  speak  to  believers  through  phono- 
graphs; no  one  ever  possessed  the  philosopher's  stone, 
which  gave  him  eternal  youth  and  transmuted  all  metals 
in  gold;  until  our  own  day  no  one  knew  of  X  rays  or 
radium.  Only  the  invincible  attraction  of  the  mar- 
vellous induced  men  to  invent  and  believe  these  fairy- 
tales. Thus,  Aristarchus  was  credited  with  knowledge 
of  the  Copernican  system  which  was  not  really  discov- 
ered till  fifteen  hundred  years  later.  In  this  and  many 
other  cases  a  brilliant  suspicion  is  confused  with  the 
clear  insight  and  stern  logic  of  proof.  To  search 
through  ancient  authors  for  indications  of  inventions  not 
made  till  thousands  of  years  later  may  be  an  amusing 
pastime;  it  is,  however,  completely  sterile  to  discover, 
for  example,  a  description  of  movable  type  in  Cicero; 
of  the  air  balloon  and  flying-machine  in  Leonardo  da 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  337 

Vinci  and  Cyrano  de  Bergerac;  in  others  of  photog- 
raphy, telegraphy,  and  the  telephone.  In  the  Opus 
Ma  jus  of  Roger  Bacon  alone  decided  forecasts  are 
found  of  gunpowder,  the  telescope,  the  air-pump,  the 
air-ship,  the  diving-bell,  the  suspension  bridge,  the 
steamer,  and  the  locomotive.1  Waggish  interpreters 
have  ascribed  the  destruction  of  the  people  of  Korah 
to  the  explosion  of  a  powder  or  dynamite  mine,  and 
interpreted  the  trumpets  before  which  the  walls  of  Jeri- 
cho fell  down  as  cannon;  Elijah's  chariot  of  fire  as  a 
locomotive  or  automobile;  and  the  myth  of  Daedalus 
and  Icarus  as  the  story  of  the  first  kite-flier.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  serious.  Man's  needs  have  always  aroused 
the  wish  for  satisfaction;  that  wish  was  the  father  of 
ideas,  and  a  lively  imagination  soon  raised  fabulous 
pictures  of  imaginary  ways  of  satisfying  the  need.  The 
difficulty  is,  however,  to  step  from  the  playful  activity 
of  the  imagination,  acting  under  the  stimulus  of  some 
need  or  longing,  to  the  creation  of  something  real ;  from 
juggling  with  ideas  to  making  some  definite  technical 
invention  or  scientific  discovery.  He  who  takes  the 
step  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  dreamers  who  went 
before  him,  save  the  need  that  spurred  both  on.  The 
step  once  taken,  the  ground  thus  won  can  never  be  lost 
again. 

It  was  natural  that  when  the  intellect  awoke  after 
the  long  night  of  the  Middle  Ages,  after  a  thousand 
years  of  feudal  barbarism,  a  dispute  should  arise  as  to 
whether  permanent  progress  existed  or  no.  In  the 
famous  literary  war  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 

1  Frederic    de    Rougemont,    "  Les    deux   cites,"    Paris,    1874,    vo'>    *•» 
p.  449. 


338      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tury,  into  which  Boisrobert,  Lamotte,  Perrault,  Ter- 
rason,  and  others  entered  with  spirit,1  Perrault  tried 
to  explain  the  undeniable  fact  of  the  disappearance, 
throughout  many  centuries,  of  all  the  knowledge  of 
Greece  and  Rome  by  a  comparison  with  rivers  that  will 
suddenly  seem  to  be  dried  up,  although  they  do,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  continue  their  course  underground,  and 
appear  again  in  full  force  at  some  remote  spot.2  The 
comparison,  though  striking,  is  not  really  applicable. 
Knowledge  once  acquired  is  not  swallowed  up  by  the 
earth,  nor  does  it  continue  to  exist  beneath  it.  A  teacher 
hands  it  on  to  his  scholars;  sons  learn  it  from  their 
fathers,  just  as  they  do  in  the  time  when  knowledge  flour- 
ishes, or,  to  use  Perrault's  image,  when  the  stream  flows 
above  ground.  Those  who  tend  real,  certain  knowledge 
are  never  numerous;  at  a  time  when  barbarism  is  su- 
preme they  may  be  fewer  than  usual.  But  the  type  could 
only  die  out  were  it  confined  to  a  single  spot  and  to 
a  single  class  there,  which  was  exterminated  at  the  first 
encounter  with  some  wild  foreign  conquerer.  In  this 
way  the  conquistadors  butchered  those  who  tended  the 
knowledge  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  before  any  relations 
had  been  established  between  them  such  as  would  have 
enabled  any  communication  or  exchange  of  knowledge 
to  be  made.  But  in  the  course  of  history  no  such  case 
has  occurred  within  the  white  or  yellow  races  who  have 
created  and  tended  our  civilization.  All  that  has  been 
acquired  has  therefore  always  been  maintained;  the 
confines  of  our  knowledge  have  always  extended,  never 

1  Hippolyte   Rigaut,    "  Histoire    de    la    querelle    des    anciens   et    de9 
modernes,"  Paris,  1856. 

*  Perrault,  "  Parallele  des  /anciens  et  des  modernes,"  Paris,  1688. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  339 

closed  in,   and  the   progress   of  knowledge  has   been 
constant. 

Knowledge  denotes  the  comprehension  by  the  under- 
standing of  the  ordered  combination  and  course  of 
phenomena.  Intuition  and  supposition  may  lead  to 
knowledge,  by  rousing  and  directing  the  attention,  but 
they  are  not  in  themselves  knowledge.  It  can  only  be 
acquired  by  the  aid  of  observation  consciously  directed 
by  the  will,  in  rare  and  exceptional  cases  by  involun- 
tary apprehension,  or  even  by  unconscious  sense  impres- 
sion. Consciousness  probably  enters  into  the  origin  of 
what  is  vaguely  designated  by  the  word  "  instinct," 
in  so  far  as  it  is  not  a  case  of  mere  tropism.  Extremely 
complicated  movements,  such  as  swimming,  fencing,  or 
playing  the  pianoforte,  which  must  originally  have  re- 
quired the  greatest  attention  and  a  sustained  and  con- 
scious exercise  of  will  for  their  order  and  co-ordination, 
are  shown  to  be  capable  of  an  automatism  into  which 
consciousness,  attention,  and  will  no  longer  enter.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  impossible  not  to  conclude  that  every 
instance  of  this  automatism — every  instinct,  in  a  word — 
has  originated  in  actions  directed  by  will  to  some  pur- 
pose existing  in  idea,  is  the  outcome  of  organized  atten- 
tion. At  the  moment  of  the  completion  of  this  organ- 
ization by  the  nerve-centres  consciousness  is  called  up 
by  the  summons  of  instinct;  and  instinct  is  certainly  not 
knowledge.  At  the  best,  it  may  be  a  source  of  knowl- 
edge when  consciousness,  to  some  extent  a  looker-on  at 
the  manifestations  of  its  own  instinctive  life,  is  at  a 
given  moment  aroused  by  curiosity  out  of  the  dull 
acceptance  of  the  usual  and  stimulated  to  ask  the  cause 
and  purpose  of  the  instinctive  action.     In  every  case 


340      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

then,  knowledge  premises  an  operation  of  the  conscious- 
ness which  observes  phenomena  with  the  aid  of  the 
attention,  and  combines  its  perceptions  by  means  of  in- 
terpretation and  judgment  into  connected  ideas.  The 
more  alert  and  sustained  the  attention,  the  more  accu- 
rate and  complete  is  observation,  and  the  closer  the 
correspondence  of  the  ideas  and  judgments  with  the 
phenomena  on  which  they  are  based;  the  more  real, 
in  a  word,  will  be  the  knowledge.  Knowledge  pro- 
gresses as  the  reality  of  its  content  increases.  If,  not 
satisfied  with  the  result,  it  is  desired  to  investigate  the 
mechanism  by  which  it  is  obtained,  the  matter  must  be 
put  thus:  Progress  is  an  increase  in  the  capacity  to  set 
attention  in  action  artificially,  and  to  sustain  it  by  the 
exclusion  of  distracting  objects.  In  other  words,  prog- 
ress, in  the  last  resort,  is  the  development  of  the  force 
and  endurance  of  the  human  will,  expressed  in  the  intel- 
lectual spheres  of  attention  and  inhibition.  The  func- 
tion of  the  latter  is  to  restrain  the  trains  of  new  ideas 
that  are,  under  the  stimulus  of  sense  impressions  and 
association,  continually  trying  to  force  their  way  into 
the  consciousness,  so  long  as  it  is  directed  to  a  definite 
field  of  observation,  and  to  complete  and  logically 
develop  the  results  obtained  from  it. 

It  follows,  from  the  definition  of  progress  as  an 
increase  of  knowledge  by  an  extension  of  its  real  ele- 
ments of  its  content,  that  the  imagination,  which  dis- 
poses of  the  elements  of  reality  at  its  own  arbitrary 
pleasure,  and  makes  no  claim  to  the  exact  representa- 
tions of  phenomena,  can  play  no  direct  part  in  progress. 
Art,  too,  as  the  creation  of  the  imagination,  is  equally 
invalid  as  a  criterion  o£  progress.    Therefore  it  was  an 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  341 

error  to  try  to  solve  the  question  of  progress  by  a  com- 
parison of  ancient  and  modern  works  of  art,  as  was 
attempted  in  the  famous  strife  of  old  and  new  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  Nothing  is  proved  for  or  against 
progress  by  placing  Homer  above  Dante,  Tasso,  and 
Milton;  Sophocles  above  Shakespeare  and  Schiller; 
Phidias  above  Michael  Angelo;  Zeuxis  above  Raphael, 
or  vice  versa.  The  spheres  of  imagination  and  of  knowl- 
edge do  overlap,  but  not  coincide.  Probably  human 
imagination  was  more  fertile  at  the  beginning  than 
later  on.1  The  scanty  knowledge  then  possessed  by  man 
could  neither  consciously  nor  unconsciously  rein  in  the 
wild  and  tumultuous  course  of  his  unbridled  imagina- 
tion. Its  gambols,  spurred  on  and  guided  solely  by 
need,  desire,  and  longing,  must  have  been  extraordi- 
narily pleasurable,  because  they  corresponded  fully  to 
the  organic  appetites  and  flattered  them.  Fantasy, 
hardly  impeded  by  the  attention,  which  was  as  yet  but 
little  developed  artificially,  and  limited  by  no  considera- 
tion of  reality,  known  or  unknown,  dominated  the  whole 
realm  of  brain  activity,  and  developed  with  a  luxuri- 
ance never  found  in  the  disciplined  reason  and  trained 
observation  of  civilized  man,  except  when  his  mental 
balance  is  disturbed  by  disease  and  he  raves  under  the 
influence  of  acute  mania,  or  of  alcohol,  opium,  hashish, 
or  other  poisons.  No  poetic  invention  of  later  times 
comes  up  to  the  myths  and  fables  of  antiquity  in  vivid- 
ness and  wealth  of  astonishing  incident ;  and  even  to-day 
the  fairy-tales  of  savage  races  are  far  superior  to  the 

1  J.  B.  Vico,  "  Nuova  Scienza,"  second  edition,  Naples,  1730,  book 
i.,  chap,  ii.:  "In  the  childhood  of  the  world  men  must  naturally 
have  been  sublime  poets." 


342      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

artistic  inventions  of  the  same  sort  among  civilized 
peoples.  Progress  clips  the  wings  of  Pegasus  or  nar- 
rows the  space  for  his  flight.  The  need  of  being  care- 
ful in  his  movements  spoils  his  glorious  turbulence  and 
the  beauty  of  his  unfettered  soaring. 

The  progress  of  knowledge  has  only  been  indirectly 
of  advantage  to  art,  by  placing  at  the  disposal  of  the 
imagination  a  greater  wealth  of  reliable  ideas,  and 
demanding,  side  by  side  with  the  development  of  a 
sense  of  reality,  an  increased  co-operation  of  critical 
reason,  and  the  logical  faculty  in  the  creative  work  of 
the  fancy.  Yet  it  is  very  likely  that  the  productions  of 
instructed  artists  may  possess  far  less  of  that  power  of 
suggestion,  on  which  their  aesthetic  effect  wholly  de- 
pends, than  those  of  much  more  ignorant  creators. 
They  believed  x  in  the  inventions  of  their  fantasy,  while 
the  moderns  stand  outside  of  them  and  regard  them  as 
merely  so  much  intellectual  construction.  No  modern 
could  emulate  the  naive  creations  of  antiquity,  such  as 
the  hybrid  centaurs,  sphinxes,  satyrs, ,  griffins,  harpies, 
etc.,  or  permit  the  Gods  to  interfere  in  human  destiny 
after  the  fashion  of  Homer  and  the  tragedians. 
How  unconvinced,  and  therefore  unconvincing,  is  the 
treatment  of  the  supernatural  in  Tasso's  "  Jerusa- 
lem " !  How  difficult  it  is  for  the  modern  reader  to 
make  anything  of  Shakespeare's  witches  and  appari- 
tions I  They  cannot  possibly  inspire  terror,  because 
the  poet  obviously  does  not  really  believe  in  them  him- 
self. 

For  what  purpose  does  man  make  the  severe  effort  to 
strengthen  his  will,  sustain  and  sharpen  his  attention, 

1  "  Fingunt  siraul  credunt  "    (Tacitus). 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  343 

control  the  aimless  association  of  his  ideas,  and  intro- 
duce more  and  more  reality  into  those  ideas — in  a  word, 
to  acquire  more,  more  certain  and  more  comprehensive 
knowledge?  For  the  one  great  purpose  of  all  life — an 
easier  and  more  perfect  adaptation  to  the  natural  con- 
ditions of  existence. 

Progress  is  assuredly  movement  towards  a  goal,  but 
this  goal  is  not  mystical,  has  not  been  conceived  by  a 
Supernatural  spirit,  or  determined  by  a  supernatural 
will;  it  is  throughout  earthly,  concrete,  immanent,  the 
same  for  all  life — it  is  self-preservation.  Progress  in 
knowledge  permits  all  the  resources  of  nature  that  can 
be  used  by  man  to  be  more  profitably  employed,  the  evils 
and  dangers  that  threatened  him  to  be  more  frequently 
avoided,  pleasure  to  be  increased,  discomfort  lessened, 
and  the  average  duration  of  life  to  be  prolonged.  The 
immediate  effect  of  increased  knowledge  is  purely  utili- 
tarian and  biological.  Indirectly  it  is  psychological  and 
moral.  It  increases  self-reliance  in  man,  and  gives  him 
a  rising  sense  of  his  own  dignity.  It  rouses  resistance 
to  selfish  domination,  tutelage,  exploitation.  When  a 
man  has  reached  the  stage  at  which  he  sees  that  every 
assertion,  instead  of  being  blindly  accepted,  should  be 
subjected  to  the  critical  examination  of  the  reason  and 
compared  with  the  facts  of  experience,  he  no  longer  be- 
lieves that  some  men  are  born  with  a  right  to  live  by  the 
labour  of  their  fellows,  and  others  with  the  duty  of  toil- 
ing for  their  advantage ;  and  he  refuses  to  part  with  the 
fruits  of  his  efforts  except  in  exchange  for  useful  and 
desirable  services.  More  perfect  attention  and  stronger 
will  power  enable  him  to  fix  one  thought  more  lastingly, 
and  to  maintain  it  against  the  attack  upon  the  conscious- 


344      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ness  of  distracting  associations;  to  develop  it  consequen- 
tially, and  pursue  its  ramifications;  to  form  judgments 
in  which  the  causes  and  effects  of  phenomena  are  fol- 
lowed up  in  close  harmony  with  reality.  Therefore  he 
becomes  more  and  more  capable  of  penetrating  the 
multitudinous  and  often  exceedingly  cunning  disguises 
of  exploiting  parasitism,  and  defending  himself  effectu- 
ally against  the  sycophants  who  are  hidden  in  the  back- 
ground of  old  and  honourable  institutions,  or  crowd 
up  to  him  under  the  masks  of  patrons,  protectors,  and 
helpers,  and  slip  their  clever  fingers  in  his  pockets. 
Villa  *  has  correctly  pointed  out  that  men  always  aim  at 
near  goals  because  they  do  not  see  or  know  distant  ones. 
But  progress  consists  in  a  sharpening  of  their  intellec- 
tual sight  that  will  permit  them  to  fix  their  gaze  on  more 
and  more  distant  goals,  and  to  penetrate  and  disentangle 
increasingly  complex  conditions. 

Increasing  knowledge,  moreover,  involves  a  higher 
value  for  personality,  and  a  limitation  and  restriction 
of  parasitism.  More  and  more  the  individual  realizes 
himself  as  an  end,  and  pays  less  and  less  attention  to 
sounding  sophistries  that  declare  it  to  be  a  duty,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  virtuous  and  heroic  act,  to  allow  himself 
to  be  abused  by  others.  At  an  early  stage  of  develop- 
ment recognized  morality  is  summed  up  in  the  Horatian 
epigram,  "  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori." 
How  should  it  not  be  "  sweet  and  honourable  to  die  for 
one's  country "  when,  as  Plato  teaches  in  the  "  Re- 
public," the  individual  is  nothing,  the  State — that  is, 
the  country — all?  Not  only  the  State,  to  which  one  can 
always  assign  some  moral  greatness,  but  the  privileged 

1  Guido  Villa,  "  L'idealismo  modcrno,"  Turin,  1905,  pp.  205  et  seq. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  345 

and  upper  class  within  the  State.  Lucan  1  expresses  this 
with  incomparable  brutality:  "The  Gods  have  never 
demeaned  their  providence  to  the  level  of  your  life,  your 
death  (the  common  people).  The  people  all  imitate 
the  movement  of  the  upper  class.  Mankind  lives  for 
the  advantage  of  the  few."  Later  moralists  and 
philosophers  cynically  laid  bare  the  inner  meaning  of 
such  unctuous  morality  when  they  placed  the  ruler  in  the 
place  of  the  State.  Thus  Alberic  Gentilis  called  the 
power  of  kings  over  their  peoples  a  natural,  necessary, 
unconditional,  primitive  right,  like  that  of  the  father 
over  his  children.  This,  in  an  Italian  educated  in  the 
traditions  of  classical  education,  is  obviously  a  reminis- 
cence of  the  Twelve  Tables:  "  Patri  familias  ius  vitae 
et  necis  in  liberos  esto  " — "  The  father  shall  have  the 
right  of  life  and  death  over  his  children  " — supple- 
mented by  the  more  practical  "  Quidquid  filius  acquirit, 
patri  acquirit " — "  Whatever  the  son  acquires,  he  ac- 
quires for  his  father." 

Hobbes  gave  his  views  an  even  harsher  form.  He 
held  peace  to  be  the  highest  good,  and  freedom  its 
greatest  enemy.  In  it  he  saw  the  source  of  all  evil, 
and  regarded  despotism  as  the  only  means  of  stopping  it, 
with  the  Church  as  an  instrument  for  the  maintenance  of 
order.  What  a  chasm  between  the  views  of  Plato, 
Gentilis,  or  Hobbes  and  those  of  Hoffding,2  who  esti- 

1  "Pharsalia,"  Lib.  V.,  v.,  342  et  seg.: 

"...  Numquam  sic  cura  decorum  ■ 
Se  premit,  ut  vestrae  morti,  vestraeque  saluti 
Fata  vacent.     Procerum  motus  haee  cuncta  sequuntur 
Humanum  paucis  vivit  genus." 

*  Harald    Hoffding,    "  Filosofiske   Probleme,"   Kopenhagen,    1902,    p. 


346      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

mates  the  moral  worth  of  a  society  by  the  extent  to 
which  it  regards  the  individual,  not  merely  as  a  means, 
but  an  end!  Or,  to  take  other  milestones,  between  the 
"  L'etat,  c'est  moi  "  of  Louis  XIV.  to  Frederick  the 
Great's  "  I  am  the  first  servant  of  the  State  "  and  the 
"  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man."  I  do  not  propose 
to  enter  into  modern  anarchism,  which  sees  in  the  State 
the  systematized  exploitation  of  the  many  by  a  privi- 
leged class;  in  the  idea  of  country,  with  its  poetic 
imagery,  a  cunning  speculation  on  the  part  of  this  class 
for  trading  on  the  easy  sentimentality  of  the  unthinking; 
and  in  the  man  without  property,  a  man  who,  having 
no  country  and  no  interest  in  the  State,  would  be  a  fool 
to  make  the  smallest  sacrifice  in  defence  of  the  privileges 
of  those  who  exploit  him.  Such  views  must  appear 
abominably  immoral,  even  criminal,  when  judged  by  a 
morality  developed  from  the  order  established  by  a 
privileged  class.  Crude  and  undeveloped  as  they  are, 
however,  they  contain  the  outlines  of  the  morality  of 
a  new  order — an  order  in  which  the  individual  recog- 
nizes himself  as  an  end,  brands  all  exploitation  as  a 
crime,  and  regards  as  a  revolting  and  unnatural  im- 
morality any  suggestion  that  he  should  sacrifice  himself 
to  an  end  outside  himself,  in  whatever  flattering  name 
that  end  may  be  dressed  up. 

Increasing  knowledge  has  one  consequence  that  is 
apparently — but  only  apparently — directed  against  in- 
dividual autonomy  and  the  sovereignty  of  personality. 

74  (trans.  Galen  M.  Fisher,  New  York,  1905,  p.  163):  "The  test  of 
the  perfection  of  a  human  society  ...  is,  to  what  degree  is  every 
person  so  placed  and  treated  that  he  is  not  only  a  mere  means,  but 
also  always  at  the  same  time  an  end  ?  " 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  347 

Man's  greater  insight  teaches  him  that  his  fellow-men 
are  unequal  by  nature;  that  there  are  among  them  strong 
and  weak,  armed  and  unarmed;  and  that  it  is  not  easy 
for  the  former  to  resist  the  temptation  to  misuse  their 
natural  superiority  at  the  expense  of  the  less  favourably 
endowed.  Gradually  his  intelligence  discovers  a  means 
of  protection  against  the  attacks  of  the  strong  in  the 
organized  combination  of  the  middling.  It  is  the 
awakened  self-consciousness  of  the  individual  which 
determines  him  to  sacrifice  a  portion  of  his  independence 
by  freely  entering  a  community  and  submitting  to 
limitations  on  his  freedom,  in  order  to  save  himself  by 
the  small  sacrifice  thus  voluntarily  imposed  from  being 
reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  slave  or  chattel  by  the 
powerful  parasites  whom  he  could  not  resist  in  isolation. 
At  the  beginning,  even  in  this  systematic  union  of  the 
middling  for  mutual  protection,  inequality  plays  its  part. 
Even  here  the  superior  leader  comes  to  the  front,  and 
compels  others  to  gather  round  him,  in  accordance  with 
his  views,  by  the  weight  of  his  personality,  by  persua- 
sion, command,  or  threats.  It  is  a  psychological 
process  practically  not  very  different  from  that  by 
which  the  chieftains  in  early  and  very  early  times  gath- 
ered their  following  about  them ;  but  its  end  is  the  exact 
opposite.  The  superior  man  gathers  his  companions 
about  him,  not  for  attack,  but  for  defence;  not  to  ex- 
ploit, but  to  protect  them.  The  end  itself  has  an  edu- 
cative effect  on  the  community,  and  soon  the  most 
limited  and  least  independent  of  its  members  sees  why 
he  belongs  to  it;  that  he  is,  in  it,  an  equal  among  equals; 
that  it  safeguards  his  freedom  and  his  independence. 
Thus,  in  the  common  social  life  of  man,  progress  con- 


348      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

sists  in  the  gradual  education  of  conscious,  voluntary 
citizenship.  Exploitation  becomes  more  and  more  dif- 
ficult, until  at  last  it  becomes  impracticable  either  by 
force  or  cunning.  Anyone  who  creates  value  will  ex- 
change it  only  for  equal  value.  Symbiosis  takes  the 
place  of  parasitism. 

The  biological  significance  of  this  is  that  over  a  wide 
area  progress  brings  the  human  species  into  the  same 
relation  to  nature  as  all  other  living  species.  They 
adapt  their  structure  to  the  conditions  of  their  environ- 
ment, or,  if  they  fail,  succumb.  Within  the  species  the 
position  of  the  individual  relative  to  his  environment  is 
the  same :  each  has  to  struggle  for  survival  with  his  own 
means,  and  death  is  the  inexorable  penalty  of  incapacity. 
The  position  of  the  human  species  alone  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  originally  different.  Their  structure  was  not 
adapted  to  their  environment.  For  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  years  they  endeavoured  to  adapt  themselves 
to  it,  undertaking  that  adaptation,  not  throughout  their 
organism,  but  solely  by  their  brains,  with  the  help 
of  observation,  invention,  judgment,  and  knowledge. 
Within  the  human  species  a  great  inequality  in  method 
of  adaptation  developed  itself  as  between  individuals. 
The  more  efficient,  following  the  law  of  least  effort,  em- 
ployed the  convenient  and  productive  method  of  para- 
sitism at  the  expense  of  their  less  well-equipped  fellows, 
on  whom  alone  fell  the  hard  labour  of  extracting  from 
nature  the  means  of  subsistence  of  the  whole  species. 
Gradually,  however,  the  human  species  rendered  the 
conditions  of  its  hostile  environment  favourable  to  itself 
by  artificial  means,  and  individuals,  instead  of  practis- 
ing parasitism,  were  afrle  to  take  direct  advantage  of  the 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  349 

favourable  conditions  of  existence  artificially  created  by 
common  exertion.  Completed  adaptation,  then,  is  seen, 
on  the  one  hand,  in  the  alleviation  of  human  existence 
in  the  midst  of  hostile  nature,  and,  on  the  other,  in 
the  penalization  of  parasitism  by  the  increased  power  of 
self-protection;  so  that  the  law  of  least  effort  no  longer 
compels  the  most  powerful  individuals  necessarily  to 
take  recourse  to  parasitism. 

Thus  we  have  obtained  an  exhaustive  answer  to  the 
question  of  progress.  The  notion  of  progress  has  appli- 
cation and  meaning  only  for  humanity.  There  can  be  no 
progress  in  the  universe.  The  eternity  of  the  world,  and 
the  absence  of  any  end  from  which  such  progress  could 
acquire  significance,  exclude  it.  In  an  eternal  universe 
human  thought  can  only  discern  eternal  motion  in  a 
cycle  or  cycles,  of  which  all  the  periods  possess  the  same 
worth  and  significance.  We  cannot  speak  of  progress 
within  the  solar  and  planetary  system,  or  even  in  the 
orders  of  living  creatures.  There  is  no  objective — that 
is  to  say,  non-human — ground  for  assigning  higher 
worth  in  the  universe  to  a  globe  with  a  hard  crust  than 
to  a  drop  of  molten  fluid,  or  less  to  a  completely  scorified 
and  frozen  orb  than  to  our  planet  in  its  present  or  primi- 
tive condition.  Were  any  difference  to  be  made  as  be- 
tween such  conditions,  the  primitive  drop  of  molten  fluid 
must  rank  above  the  stiff-crusted  orb  and  the  ball  of 
ice,  inasmuch  as  all  the  electric,  chemical,  and  me- 
chanical properties  of  energy  must  undoubtedly  have 
more  powerful,  free,  and  varied  play  in  the  form  of 
drops  than  later,  when,  its  processes  becoming  slow, 
they  cool  off  into  globes.  Nor  are  we  entitled  to  gen- 
eralize from  the  development  of  the  unicellular  organ- 


350     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ism  and  apply  to  strongly  differentiated  plants  and 
animals  descriptive  terms  such  as  "  advance "  and 
"  progress,"  which  suggest  a  judgment  of  value.  On 
the  contrary,  it  could  be  very  well  maintained  that  the 
simplest  living  creatures  are  more  perfect  than  the  more 
complicated,  because  they  are  more  capable  of  resistance 
to  hostile  environment,  more  successful  in  maintaining 
themselves,  in  spite  of  unfavourable  circumstances,  and 
are  practically  immortal,  since,  instead  of  dying  of  their 
own  inherent  weakness,  they  can  only  be  destroyed  by 
the  chance  action  of  some  external  power.  With 
naively  unconscious  bias  we  have  taken  humanity  and 
human  life  as  our  standard  of  value,  and  test  the  worth 
of  all  things,  beings,  and  conditions  by  it.  The  more 
closely  any  being  resembles  man,  the  more  favourable 
any  condition  is  for  human  life,  the  higher  is  the  value 
we  assign  to  them,  and  we  conceive  of  their  end  as  lying 
in  resemblance  to  man,  becoming  favourable  to  his  exist- 
ence, and  speak  of  development  in  that  direction  as 
progress.  On  such  grounds  we  esteem  the  development 
of  the  planetary  system  from  primary  vapour,  the  cool- 
ing of  the  primary  drop  to  form  the  habitable  globe,  the 
differentiation  of  the  unicellule  into  mollusc,  worm, 
vertebrate,  warm-blooded  animal,  and  mammal,  as  an 
advance  in  the  scale,  as  a  movement  towards  perfection, 
as  progress.  Such  a  view  is  based  on  an  anthropo- 
morphic illusion  which  cannot  stand  against  scientific 
criticism. 

Even  within  the  human  race  progress  is  hardly  to  be 
thought  of  as  regards  the  fundamental  characteristics  of 
human  nature  and  human  life.  Human  memory  is  very 
far  from  perfect,  artd  it  has  very  probably  become  less 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  351 

powerful  since  it  began  to  help  itself  out  by  means  of 
writing.  Nor  has  man  become  happier.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  preponderance  of  intellect  over  emotion  causes 
him  to  create  imaginary  evils,  and  prevents  him  from 
enjoying  the  pleasures  he  possesses  with  the  old  reckless 
glee.  Nor  can  man  to-day  be  said  to  be  better  than  his 
distant — even  than  his  most  distant — ancestors.  He 
has  only  learned  to  conceal  his  selfishness  and  his  un- 
sympathetic hardness  towards  his  fellows  or  to  disguise 
it  as  love  of  his  kind.  The  point  remains  in  which  real 
progress  is  visible  in  the  domain  of  will.  The  total 
energy  of  the  human  will  has  possibly  not  increased;  it 
is  certainly  no  longer  displayed,  as  among  barbarians,  in 
violent  ebb  and  flow,  in  the  wild  and  sudden  outbursts 
of  extreme  and  transitory  exaltation  that  give  rise  to 
deeds  of  heroism.  But  it  is  regular,  disciplined,  and 
sustained,  and  therefore  far  more  adapted  for  regular 
and  productive  employment  than  the  wild,  untamed 
force  of  primitive  man.  The  one  is  like  a  canal  that 
drives  mill-wheels  and  supplies  the  driving-power  of 
electric  turbines ;  the  other  is  a  mountain  burn,  that  gen- 
erally trickles  along  in  a  tiny  streamlet,  or  dries  up  alto- 
gether, but  sometimes  comes  down  with  fury,  tearing  up 
rocks,  and  laying  waste  woods  in  its  course.  When  the 
will  is  thus  disciplined,  even  if  its  energy  be  not  in- 
creased, it  permits  the  attention  to  be  concentrated  and 
sustained,  phenomena  to  be  observed  with  more  fruit- 
ful results,  a  further  tracing  of  their  causal  connection, 
and  anticipation  of  their  consequences,  judgments  to  be 
formed  and  conclusions  reached  of  a  more  thoroughly 
logical  kind.  The  result  is  that  the  sense  of  reality  be- 
comes more  acute ;  the  ideas  cover  a  wider  range,  present 


352      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

and  future;  and  knowledge  is  extended,  while  its  basis 
becomes  more  secure.  In  the  last  resort  knowledge  as- 
sists man  to  establish  himself  more  readily  within  the 
natural  order,  provide  himself  with  more  favourable 
conditions  of  existence,  and  satisfy  his  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  more  completely.  Knowledge  is  thus 
adaptation  on  the  intellectual  side,  and  progress  the 
return  more  and  more  to  that  relation  to  his  environ- 
ment in  which  man  found  himself  before  the  first 
Ice  Age — a  stage  that  may  be  called  paradisical.  In 
other  words,  progress  is  the  artificial  re-creation  of  the 
favourable  conditions  of  life  no  longer  provided 
by  nature,  and  the  extension  of  those  conditions,  not 
to  favoured  individuals  alone,  but  to  the  average 
man. 

Such  a  conclusion,  such  an  answer,  to  the  question 
of  progress  will,  no  doubt,  be  to  many  not  only  disap- 
pointing, but  positively  revolting.  "  What !  "  they  will 
cry,  "  is  progress  to  result  merely  in  returning  us  to 
that  condition  now  enjoyed  from  birth  on  by  every  ani- 
mal and  plant  species  that  flourishes  on  the  earth? 
Have  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  of  exertion 
brought  us  no  more  advantage  than  a  share  of  the  privi- 
leges of  the  smallest  bacillus?  Is  this  all  we  have  at- 
tained through  a  knowledge  that  takes  the  universe  for 
its  province,  and  tells  us  the  secrets  of  the  matter,  con- 
dition, and  movement  of  the  first  cosmic  vapour; 
through  all  our  discoveries,  our  inventions — that  we 
may  live  our  little  life  and  no  more,  and  not  live  it  so 
happily  as  did  our  remotest  ancestors,  who  enjoyed  a 
soft,  warm  air,  that  freed  them  from  the  need  of  shelter, 
fire,  and  clothing,  and"  food  that  could  be  plucked  from 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  353 

every  tree?  Is  all  this  toil  and  labour  to  go  for  such 
a  miserable  end?  Mere  life  cannot  possibly  be  worth 
this  huge,  incessant  expense  of  spirit!  " 

The  indignation  of  wounded  self-esteem  cannot  do 
away  with  the  humiliating  truth.  The  objective  worth 
of  human  life,  from  a  superhuman  point  of  view,  we 
cannot  know.  To  mankind  it  has  hitherto  always 
seemed  a  good  of  the  highest  value,  although  Schiller 
maintained  the  contrary,  and  may  have  been  right  in 
exceptional  individual  cases.  Self-preservation  has  al- 
ways seemed  the  best  use  to  which  force  and  capacity 
could  be  put.  Life  feels  itself  as  an  end,  and  is  satisfied 
therewith.  Poets  and  thinkers  have  denied  it.  They 
have  declared  that  some  exertions  are  not  worth  while. 
Martial  maintained  that  it  was  the  greatest  mistake 
44  propter  vitam  vivendi  perdere  causus  " — to  lose  the 
causes  for  living  for  the  sake  of  life.  He  maintained, 
that  is  to  say,  that  life  has  causes  that  lie  outside  and 
above  it.  Eighteen  centuries  later  Georg  Simmel  ex- 
presses the  same  view  when  he  finds  the  cause  of  the 
unrest,  discontent,  and  vague  yet  painful  longings  of  the 
present  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  in  the  complexity  of  mod- 
ern civilization  and  the  extent  to  which  the  division  of 
labour  has  been  carried  the  individual,  divorced  from 
the  purpose  or  utility  of  his  work,  feels  his  existence 
to  be  empty  and  meaningless,  and  is  discontented  with 
his  life  and  with  himself.  These  are  brilliant  ideas  that 
occur  as  one  sits  at  one's  desk.  They  are  not  drawn 
from  contemplation  of  the  spectacle  of  actual  human 
life.  The  sense  of  life  is  pleasurable  in  itself,  and  af- 
fords in  itself  a  satisfaction  that  is  sufficient  stimulus 
to  the  living  to  cling  to  it  at  any  price.     Not  until  the 


354     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tide  of  life  in  the  organism  begins  to  ebb,  and  the  chem- 
ical and  physical  processes  connected  with  life  begin  to 
circulate  more  slowly  and  less  smoothly  through  the 
cells,  does  kinaesthesis  cease  to  be  pleasurable  and  begin 
to  contain  elements  of  positive  pain,  which  overpower, 
and  finally  suppress,  the  others.  Then,  and  only  then, 
does  the  reason,  stimulated  by  subconscious  feelings  of 
distress,  begin  to  question  the  end  of  existence  and  the 
meaning  of  its  own  activity. 

To  philosophize  about  the  meaning  and  purpose  of 
life,  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  inward  impulse,  and  not  mere 
imitation  or  intellectual  gymnastic,  is  the  sign  of  ill- 
humour  or  weakness,  sickness  or  old  age.  A  man  in 
the  plentitude  of  his  strength,  who  has  a  good  appetite 
for  his  meals  several  times  a  day,  loves  his  wife  passion- 
ately, and  finds  joy  in  his  growing  children,  and  pleasure 
in  the  opening  buds  of  spring,  never  asks  himself 
whether  these  feelings  and  impulses  and  their  satisfac- 
tion make  life  worth  living  and  justify  its  existence.  He 
does  not  seek  for  any  hidden  meaning  and  purpose  in 
life,  but  finds  both  completely  satisfied  in  the  immediate 
sensations  of  the  moment.  Even  the  incomprehensibility 
of  organized  labour  in  a  civilized  community,  and  the 
intellectual  nullity  of  the  function  performed  by  any 
individual  under  a  far-reaching  division  of  labour,  does 
not  spoil  the  temper  of  the  worker,  or  fill  him  with  pain- 
ful doubt  as  to  purpose  and  worth  of  his  existence.  If 
Georg  Simmel  had  studied  popular  wisdom,  he  would 
have  come  upon  a  French  proverb :  "  II  n'y  a  pas  de  sot 
metier,  il  n'y  a  que  de  sottes  gens" — "There  is  no 
stupid  trade,  only  stupid  people."  To  the  plain  man 
every  occupation  seems  right  and  rational  which  pro- 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  355 

vides  him  and  his  with  bread  and  butter.  So  long  as 
it  be  sufficiently  lucrative,  he  does  not  trouble  as  to  its 
significance  to  the  community  as  a  whole.  Speculation 
as  to  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  life  is  a  function  of 
the  reason,  while  the  instinct  of  life  and  the  joy  in 
life  are  feelings  that  arise  and  continue  outside  of  the 
reason,  and  uninfluenced  by  it. 

The  question  as  to  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  the 
life  of  man  and  of  humanity  belongs  to  the  same  order 
as  the  questions  as  to  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  the 
universe  as  a  whole,  and  the  origin,  goal,  and  end  of 
the  world-processes,  which  give  rise  to  fantastic  ravings, 
but  admit  of  no  rational  answer.  So  long  as  we  keep 
our  eyes  fixed  on  reality,  and,  instead  of  running  off 
after  will-o'-the-wisps,  submit  to  the  guidance  of  facts, 
the  conclusion  is  inevitably  forced  upon  us  that  the 
one  object  of  the  endeavours  of  historic  and  prehistoric 
men  has  been  self-preservation.  They  observed,  investi- 
gated, thought,  struggled  towards  knowledge,  invented 
and  discovered,  in  order  that  their  lives  might  be  safer, 
easier,  and  better,  and  they  themselves  obtain  a  larger 
share  of  pleasure.  They  founded  States,  organized  so- 
cieties, created  institutions,  customs,  habits,  and  laws, 
waged  wars,  conquered,  and  stirred  up  revolutions,  in 
order  at  first  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  superior  individuals 
fully,  and  with  least  trouble  to  themselves,  by  sacri- 
ficing to  them  the  crowd  of  average  persons,  and,  later, 
in  order  to  confine  the  parasitism  of  these  superior  beings 
within  ever-narrower  limits,  and  to  secure  to  the  average 
man,  to  an  even  greater  extent,  the  enjoyment  of  the 
fruits  of  his  own  labour.  The  self-preservation  of  hu- 
manity against  hostile  nature  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 


356      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

assimilation  of  the  claims  of  the  average  and  the  su- 
perior individuals  to  the  enjoyment  of  life  within 
humanity  on  the  other — this  is  the  goal  and  object  of 
progress.  Those  who  have  helped  it  on  have  always 
been  engaged  in  some  immediate  concrete  task.  The 
vague  search  for  a  goal  of  progress,  postulated  to  lie  out- 
side of  the  existence  of  the  species,  belongs  to  dreams, 
not  to  knowledge,  and  those  who  have  busied  themselves 
with  weaving  this  dream  and  dressing  it  out  in  beautiful 
language  have  had  no  share  in  progress.  At  best  they 
are  the  musicians  who  accompany  its  course  with 
rhythmic  measures. 

Progress  has  always  advanced  in  the  same  way 
throughout  the  course  of  human  history.  We  have  seen 
that  it  consists  in  a  widening  and  deepening  of  knowl- 
edge. This  is  the  work  of  the  few.  Civilization  is  de- 
veloped in  the  brains  of  exceptional  men  endowed  with 
more  than  common  powers  of  thought  and  will,  keen 
and  sustained  attention,  comprehensive  consciousness, 
manifold  associations,  and  an  alert  sense  of  reality — 
in  a  word,  with  unusual  energy  in  the  brain-cells.  The 
causes  thai  retard  corporate  advance  in  knowledge  do 
not  affect  such  men :  they  have  no  superstitious  reverence 
for  tradition,  no  hatred  of  the  new  as  such.  The  world 
is  more  to  them  than  books  are;  they  listen  to  the  voice 
of  nature  rather  than  to  any  teacher;  and  thus  acquire 
from  events  and  their  connection  perceptions  that  are 
new  and  personal.  All  the  views,  discoveries,  and  inven- 
tions that  represent  a  better  adaptation  of  the  species 
to  the  natural  conditions  of  its  existence  are  their  work. 
They  are  the  true  heroes  of  human  history,  not  the  six 
categories  distinguished  by  Carlyle — the  deified  tribal 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  357 

patriarch,  the  prophet,  poet,  priest,  man  of  letters,  and 
king.1  Hero-worship  directs  itself  to  these  categories, 
it  is  true,  and  not  to  the  silent  genius  whose  creation  is 
for  the  most  part  accomplished  in  solitary  obscurity, 
who  is  during  his  lifetime  almost  always  misunder- 
stood, if  not  unknown,  and  who  hardly  ever  sees  his 
exertions  bear  fruit,  so  that  he  may  have  any  share  in 
the  enjoyment  of  them. 

The  definition  given  of  great  men  by  Carlyle  in 
"  Sartor  Resartus  "  is  mere  mystic  talk.  "  They  are  the 
inspired  (speaking  and  acting)  texts  of  that  Divine 
Book  of  Revelations,  whereof  a  chapter  is  completed 
from  epoch  to  epoch,  and  by  some  named  History." 
Vico  2  sees  the  truth  much  more  accurately  when  he  says, 
of  the  heroes:  "  They  were  in  the  highest  degree  rough, 
wild,  of  most  limited  intellect,  but  of  vast  imagination 
and  the  most  ardent  passions,  and  as  the  result  of  these 
characteristics  they  must  have  been  barbaric,  cruel, 
harsh,  wild,  proud,  difficult  to  manage,  and  obstinate  in 
whatever  they  set  before  themselves."  Current  history 
is  for  the  most  part  confined  to  heroes  of  Vico's  type, 
to  whom  Carlyle  would  likewise  have  accorded  some 
measure  of  wonhip.  They  rivet  the  attention  of  con- 
temporaries, whose  accounts  transmit  their  wonder  to 

1  Thomas  Carlyle,  "  On  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,  and  the  Heroic 
in  History,"  six  lectures  reported,  with  emendations  and  additions. 
Thomas  Carlyle,  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  London,  Ward  Lock  and  Co., 
p.  1 20. 

2  "  Cinque  libri  di  Giambattista  Vico  de'  principj  d'una  scienza 
nuova  d'intorno  alia  commune  natura  della  nazioni,"  Second  im- 
pression, Naples,  1730,  p.  320:  "  Gli  eroi  .  .  .  erano  in  sommo  grado 
goffi,  fieri,  di  cortissimo  intendimento,  di  vastissime  fantasie,  di 
violentissime  passioni ;  per  lo  ettes  que  doveltei  essere  zotici,  crudi, 
aspri,  fieri,  orgogliosi,  difficili  ed  ostinati  ne'lor  propositi." 


358      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

posterity.  They  provide  the  melodrama  of  history — 
wars,  conquests,  revolutions.  To  them  is  assigned  the 
making  of  the  map,  the  foundation,  limitation,  and 
alteration  of  States,  and  the  origin  of  constitutions  and 
laws.  They  are  regarded  as  embodiments  of  the  en- 
deavours and  accomplishments  of  a  nation  or  epoch. 
But  behind  these  brilliant  and  boisterous  figures  are  the 
students,  engaged  on  the  real,  slow  work  of  adaptation 
to  which  human  existence  is  due.  They  are  the  edu- 
cators of  mankind  in  Lessing's  sense.  The  knowledge 
they  acquire  becomes  common  property  of  subsequent 
generations.  In  it  the  youth  are  brought  up  while  they 
are  still  able  to  learn,  before  they  are  petrified  in  habits 
which  resist  everything  new.  The  effect  of  this  gradual 
extension  of  the  circle  of  vision  of  the  masses  of  people, 
who  could  never  discover  new  truths  for  themselves,  is 
that  natural  resources  are  better  used  and  the  worth  of 
the  individual  increased. 

Mighty  parasites  do  nothing  for  the  extension  of 
knowledge — that  is,  for  progress.  But  their  clear-eyed 
selfishness  makes  them  appropriate  all  discoveries  and 
inventions  that  can  be  of  advantage  to  them  by  making 
it  easier  for  them  to  exploit  the  weak.  It  is  their  part 
to  translate  the  intellectual  results  of  the  students  into 
actual  practical  reality.  They  therefore  endeavour  to 
gain  a  monopoly  of  these  results,  but  cannot  prevent 
the  use  and  knowledge  of  them  spreading  in  the  course 
of  time.  Thus,  unconsciously,  they  are  arming  the  weak 
against  themselves,  and  making  their  exploitation  more 
and  more  difficult  for  themselves,  with  the  result  that, 
within  a  measurable  time,  parasitism  will  become  im- 
possible for  all  but  the  very  strongest  human  types,  for 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  359 

those  of  the  most  powerful  will,  greatest  cunning  and 
depravity. 

Humanity  lives  by  its  men  of  genius ;  but  they  do  not 
live  by  it.  Humanity  gives  them  no  more  than  any 
other  of  its  members,  and  incomparably  less  than  it 
gives  the  exploiting  parasite.  It  is  natural  that  this 
should  be  felt  to  be  somewhat  unjust  and  ungrateful,  but 
the  sentiment — a  simple  religious  reflex — arises  from 
the  same  source  as  the  primeval  worship  of  the  sun,  the 
phallic  ritual  and  the  service  of  all  the  beneficial  forces 
of  nature.  It  makes  no  difference  to  the  sun,  which 
sustains  all  the  life  upon  earth,  whether  or  no  we  are 
grateful,  the  motive  of  our  gratitude  being  partly  the 
desire  to  keep  it  in  a  shining  humour.  It  radiates  light 
and  warmth  without  knowing  or  intending  it,  and  since 
it  sacrifices  nothing  for  us,  we  are  under  no  moral  obli- 
gation to  be  grateful.  Creative  genius  does  not  discover 
or  invent  with  the  same  unconsciousness  as  the  sun,  but 
any  intention  of  giving  happiness  to  the  human  race  is 
as  far  from  one  as  from  the  other.  Consideration  for 
humanity  and  the  thought  of  benefiting  it  play  no  part 
in  stimulating  genius.  When  a  new  truth  has  been  dis- 
covered, then,  und  not  till  then,  this  consideration  may 
occur,  on  reflection.  But  the  motive  powers  of  that 
genius  are  those  common  to  all  men — need,  whether 
higher  or  lower,  that  is  to  say,  more  or  less  generalized 
or  differentiated;  the  desire  for  knowledge,  which  is 
a  more  powerful  instrument  in  their  hands  than  in  those 
of  the  average  man,  and  the-  demand  for  self-advan- 
tage and  personal  gain.  He  has  no  moral  claim  to  the 
gratitude  of  others,  and  his  reward  is  in  the  satisfaction 
inherent  in  the  attainment  of  the  goal  he  has  set  before 


360     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

himself.  And  there  is  a  further  consideration :  no  man 
of  genius  creates  by  his  own  means  alone.  He  is  heir  to 
the  labour  of  the  men  of  genius  who  have  gone  before 
him,  without  whom  his  existence  would  be  impossible. 
He  receives  on  his  entry  into  life  an  inheritance  which 
he  puts  out  to  interest  and  increases.  Thus  those  who 
have  advanced  the  human  race  form  a  spiritual  family, 
and  transmit  their  acquired  knowledge  from  generation 
to  generation.  They  form  a  special  genealogical  suc- 
cession, elevated  above  the  average.  They  are,  as  it 
were,  a  species  within  the  species,  a  human  organism 
differentiated  for  a  special  function.  All  the  compulsory 
institutions  of  State  and  society,  created  by  Vico's 
"  Eroi,"  to  satisfy  their  own  parasitic  needs,  form  a 
framework  into  which  every  individual  must  fit,  whether 
he  will  or  no,  if  he  be  not  strong  enough  to  burst  it  or 
adapt  it  to  his  purposes.  The  imprisonment  does  not 
necessarily  bring  him  into  any  closer  relationship  with 
those  who  share  it.  It  is  quite  false  to  regard  the  ap- 
parent unity  presented  by  a  nation  or  species,  as  a  result 
of  this  merely  external  pressure,  as  organic,  as  is 
done  by  Schaffle,  Lilienthal,  Gumplovicz,  Durckheim, 
Worms,  etc.  Knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  does  really 
unite  the  individuals  who  partake  of  it  in  an  intellectual 
and  moral  bond.  It  gives  to  all  without  taking  from 
any.  It  equips  man  for  the  struggle  of  existence,  with 
an  implement  artificially  adapted  for  the  purpose,  such 
as  he  could  never  have  forged  for  himself,  such  as  he 
could  gain  only  by  entrance  to  the  community.  Any 
individual  member  of  a  community  that  does  not  share 
in  its  acquired  knowledge  is  like  a  blind  or  deaf  man, 
or  a  fledgling  without  wings.     He  who  does  possess  it 


THE  QUESTION  OF  PROGRESS  361 

has  inherited  it,  like  his  physical  stature  and  his  inborn 
characteristics,  from  the  generations  who  have  gone 
before,  with  whom  and  with  his  fellow-men  he  is  organ- 
ically related  by  its  means. 

The  effect  of  progress  is  thus  apparently  contradic- 
tory. On  the  one  hand  it  renders  the  individual  more 
independent  and  more  capable  of  maintaining  himself 
against  his  fellows;  on  the  other  hand,  it  unites  individ- 
uals in  a  combination  beneficial  to  them  all,  whose  dis- 
solution would  leave  them  less  developed  and  less  well 
equipped.  Both  effects  are,  however,  but  different 
aspects  of  a  progressive  adaptation  to  the  given  condi- 
tions of  existence. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ESCHATOLOGY 

The  English  saying,  "  Don't  prophesy  unless  you 
know,"  affords  a  really  exhaustive  definition  of  the 
relation  of  human  knowledge  to  the  future.  But  so 
incessant  and  so  strong  is  man's  desire  to  penetrate  the 
vast  region  of  the  unknown,  that  any  visionary  with  the 
gift  of  words  who  plays  the  seer  and  indulges  in  absurd 
prophecies  will  find  listeners  ready  to  believe  with  all 
their  souls.  It  was  religion  that  first  emphasized 
eschatology.  It  was,  indeed,  always  its  strongest  at- 
traction, side  by  side  with  the  protection  that  it  claimed 
to  afford  against  all  the  evils  by  which  man  was  threat- 
ened. With  the  same  audacious  confidence  with  which 
it  informed  them  of  the  final  causes  and  destiny  of  the 
world,  it  revealed  all  the  secrets  of  the  future.  The 
Kathaka-Upanishad  relates  that  the  Brahman  Naciketas 
descended  into  the  kingdom  of  the  dead,  in  order, 
unmoved  by  all  the  promises  of  transitory  felicity,  to 
wrest  from  the  God  of  Death  the  knowledge  of  what 
lies  beyond  the  grave.1  Buddhism  teaches  its  followers 
that  the  world  returns  to  nothingness,  in  order  to  rise 
out  of  nothingness  to  a  new  cycle  of  existence.  The 
Zend  Avesta  describes  the  Paradise  of  Light  which  is 

'Hermann    Oldenberg,    "Buddha:    His    Life,    Teaching    and    Fol- 
lowers," Berlin,  1881,  p.  57. 

36a 


ESCHATOLOGY  363 

the  eternal  abode  of  the  righteous.  The  religion  of  the 
Northern  Germans  is  less  optimistic:  it  envisages  the 
conflagration  of  the  world  and  the  twilight  of  the  Gods 
— that  is  to  say,  the  fearful  destruction  of  all  that  is. 
The  prophets  of  Israel,  instead  of  pointing  to  a  here- 
after, give  a  sufficiently  joyous  picture  of  the  future 
state  of  existence  here,  where  the  sword  is  made  into 
a  ploughshare,  and  the  wolf  and  the  lamb  lie  down 
together.  Christianity  prophesies  the  Last  Judgment, 
the  Resurrection  of  the  Dead,  and  the  kingdom  of  God 
upon  earth.  Islam  promises  to  the  faithful  an  eternal 
life,  with  all  the  pleasures  of  the  flesh.  The  psycho- 
logical explanation  of  all  these  dreams  is  simple:  they 
arise  from  a  desire.  The  wish  is  father  to  these 
thoughts.  Man  is  afraid  of  death.  He  would  like  to 
live  in  happiness  for  ever.  This  desire,  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  excited  mystics,  takes  the  form  of  a  premonition, 
a  vision,  a  promise,  and  religion  authenticates  it. 

Geologists,  too,  and  astronomers  have  followed  in  the 
track  of  theologists  on  to  the  unsure  ground  of  escha- 
tology.  In  doing  so,  they  cease  to  be  scientific,  for  in 
this  field  there  are  no  certainties,  only  possibilities — or, 
at  the  best,  probabilities.  Most  of  them  have  prophe- 
sied that  our  planet  will  be  turned  to  ice  or  to  the 
scorified  conditions  of  the  moon,  through  the  chemical 
combination  of  air  and  water;  others  that  it  will  evap- 
orate through  concussion  with  a  heavenly  body.  In  the 
once  case  humanity  would  be  frozen  to  icicles,  in  the 
other  it  would  flicker  away  as  atoms — in  each  case  its 
destiny  would  be  accomplished;  it  would  disappear,  and 
leave  no  trace.  Such  a  denouement  to  the  human  drama 
is  not  unlike  the  closing  scene  of  the  Voluspa.     The 


364      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

spectators  are  sent  disappointed  away.  What  they 
want  to  know  is  not  how  humanity  will  come  to  an  end. 
That  its  existence  will  terminate,  as  that  of  each  in- 
dividual is  doomed  to  do,  they  have  no  doubt.  They 
have  had  to  put  up  with  this  inevitable  lot  as  best  they 
may.  What  they  would  like  to  know  clearly  is  the 
form  that  human  life  will  take  before  its  end  is  reached. 
They  want  exact  and  detailed  information  from  those 
who  undertake  to  unveil  the  future.  How  will  the 
different  States  and  peoples  develop?  Will  Europe 
continue  to  rule  the  world,  or  will  the  sceptre  pass  to 
America,  or  even  to  Asia?  What  will  happen  to  the 
positive  religions,  to  the  form  and  principles  of  law? 
What  changes  will  be  undergone  by  the  hierarchy  of 
class,  the  sense  of  beauty,  the  estimation  and  practice 
of  arts  and  science?  Will  the  conceptions  of  good  and 
evil,  virtue  and  vice,  honour  and  disgrace,  alter,  and 
how?  What  new  ideas  will  replace  the  old?  What 
progress  can  be  expected  in  the  material  sphere?  What 
inventions  and  discoveries  will  come  to  make  human  life 
easier,  richer,  and  more  beautiful? 

None  of  the  facts  we  know,  none  of  the  methods  at 
present  in  existence,  are  adequate  to  give  a  definite 
answer  to  these  definite  questions.  Any  attempt  at 
detailed  forecast  would  be  a  mere  amplification  or  con- 
tinuation of  the  prophecies  of  the  monk  of  Lehnin  or 
old  Nostradamus.  Scientifically  it  would  be  worth  no 
more  than  the  fortune-telling  on  All  Hallows'  Eve  by 
means  of  tea  or  coffee-grounds.  A  general  formula  can, 
however,  be  laid  down  as  regards  technical  progress, 
inventions,  and  discoveries,  as  the  result  of  observation 
of  the  course  of  their^development. 


ESCHATOLOGY  365 

Discoveries  are  the  outcome  of  a  fundamental  psycho- 
logical trait — curiosity.  It  compels  the  observation  of 
phenomena,  and  attention  gives  a  new  account  of  them. 
Chance  is  credited  with  an  influence  upon  discovery. 
That  influence  is  very  limited.  If  a  man  happen  to 
witness  any  process  which  makes  no  great  impression  on 
his  senses,  which  he  has  never  observed,  which  does 
not  connect  itself  with  a  series  of  phenomena  that  are 
known  to  him,  he  does  not  notice  it.  He  neglects  it. 
Events  that  are  noisy  and  remarkable,  such  as  a  furious 
storm,  an  earthquake,  or  volcanic  eruption — any  melo- 
dramatic aspect  of  nature — cannot  remain  unheeded. 
They  force  themselves  upon  the  senses,  and  exercise  a 
powerful  coercion  upon  the  attention.  But  man  fails  to 
observe  the  regular,  silent  operation  of  the  chemical, 
physical,  and  biological  laws,  and  they  make  no  impres- 
sion on  him  until  his  intellect  has  been  trained  and  his 
attention  prepared  to  receive  them.  Consciousness  per- 
ceives those  sense  impressions  only  which  it  expects  to 
receive,  with  which  it  is  familiar,  which  will  fit  into  a 
logically  constructed  system  of  ideas;  others  pass  over 
it  without  leaving  any  trace,  unless  their  impact  is  of 
sufficient  force  to  compel  the  consciousness  to  build  a 
new  system  to  contain  them.  The  world  around  him  is 
constantly  addressing  itself  to  man,  and  telling  him  all 
about  itself,  but  he  does  not  understand  until  he  has 
learned  its  language  word  by  word.  Discoveries  follow 
an  iron  law  of  logical  succession:  no  chance  can  turn 
them  from  the  straight  course.  Each  prepares  the  way 
for  the  next ;  it  premises  the  other.  It  was  long  known 
that  prisms  refract  a  white  light,  yet  three-cornered 
glasses  were  used  only  to  make  a  playful  repetition  of  a 


366      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

little  rainbow.  Fraunhofer  first  noticed  the  black  lines 
in  the  colours  made  by  a  sunbeam  refracting  through  a 
prism.  He  noticed  it  because,  being  an  optician,  he 
had,  in  preparing  optical  instruments,  more  occasion 
for  observation  of  the  behaviour  of  light  in  a  prism 
than  anyone  before  him  had  had.  His  discovery  of 
the  black  lines  premised  his  knowledge  of  the  prism 
and  of  refraction.  Bunsen  and  Kirchoff  found  black, 
and  later  also  coloured,  lines  in  the  spectrum  of  an 
ordinary  flame  in  which  certain  substances  had  been 
burned,  and  found  that  these  lines  corresponded  to 
definite  burning  substances.  Thus  arose  the  chemical 
analysis  of  the  spectrum,  which  depended  on  Fraun- 
hofer's  discovery  of  the  black  lines  in  the  spectrum  of 
the  sun.  Huggins  observed,  from  a  comparison  of 
various  spectra,  that  the  lines  of  the  same  substance 
were  shifted  towards  the  violet  end  of  the  one  spectrum. 
He  remembered  Doppler's  principle,  according  to  which 
one  and  the  same  set  of  tone-vibrations  sound  higher 
when  the  vibrating  body  is  near,  deeper  when  it  is  more 
remote;  and,  applying  this  principle  to  optics,  he  in- 
terpreted the  shifting  of  the  lines  to  one  end  of  the 
spectrum  to  mean  that  the  light  was  nearer,  to  the  other 
that  it  was  farther  off,  and  was  thus  enabled,  not  only 
to  establish,  but  to  measure,  the  movements  of  the  fixed 
stars.  This  astro-physical  discovery  was  rendered  pos- 
sible by  the  former  discoveries  of  Bunsen,  Kirchoff,  and 
Fraunhofer,  and  by  popular  knowledge  of  the  refraction 
of  light  by  a  prism.  The  history  of  every  scientific 
discovery  shows  the  same  stages,  from  the  crude  per- 
ceptions of  the  natural ^man  to  an  insight  of  such  subtlety 
that  the  layman  is  for  the  most  part  unable  to  compre- 


ESCHATOLOGY  367 

hend  how  it  has  been  arrived  at,  and  how  it  is  possible 
to  convey  it  unimpaired  in  such  a  manner  as  to  carry 
irresistible  conviction  to  everyone.  Theories  and  hy- 
potheses are  valuable  as  creating  an  expectant  mental 
attitude,  which  directs  the  attention  to  the  correspond- 
ing phenomena,  and  prepares  it  to  perceive  them  when- 
ever they  appear.  On  the  other  hand,  they  have  the 
disadvantage  of  diverting  the  attention  from  those  phe- 
nomena that  do  not  correspond,  and  so  far  closing  the 
consciousness  to  the  facts  that  would  prove  the  inac- 
curacy of  the  theories  and  hypotheses  themselves.  The 
phenomena  that  do  not  fit  into  the  prevalent  hypothesis, 
and  therefore  go  unperceived,  owing  to  the  preposses- 
sion of  those  who  believe  in  it,  will  first  be  seen  and 
valued  by  the  unprejudiced  observer,  whose  attention  is 
not  governed  by  any  hypothesis,  and  who,  therefore, 
will  be  able  to  see  the  inaccuracy  of  the  one  which  is 
accepted  and  the  necessity  of  replacing  it  by  another. 
For  two  generations  all  chemists  were  so  full  of  the  idea 
of  Stahl's  phlogiston  that  they  did  not  see  the  con- 
tradictory facts  operative  on  every  side.  After  La- 
voisier's experiments,  it  became  clear  to  everyone  that 
phlogiston  was  an  imaginary  quantity,  and  chemists 
could  hardly  understand  how  they  had  failed  to  see  it 
to  be  so. 

It  can  be  safely  prophesied  that  man  will  not  cease 
making  discoveries,  and  that  the  number  and  importance 
of  these  discoveries  will  continually  increase,  since  each 
of  them  prepares  the  way  for,  new.  But  the  nature  of 
these  discoveries  cannot  be  foreseen  by  most  acute 
students,  even  by  those  to  whom  the  most  important 
scientific  results  are  due.     When  Heinrich  Geissler  in- 


368      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

vented  his  vacuum  tubes,  he  could  not  foreshadow 
Crookes'  discovery  of  the  radiation  of  matter  or 
Rontgen's  discovery  of  the  rays  that  bear  his  name. 
When  the  Curies  obtained  radium  from  pitch-blende, 
they  had  no  idea  that  Gustav  le  Bon  was  to  prove  radio- 
activity a  fundamental  characteristic  of  that  substance, 
and  deduce  therefrom  such  far-reaching  consequences  as 
its  uninterrupted  resolution  into  ether  on  the  one  hand, 
and  its  continual  formation  from  ether  on  the  other. 
When  Galvani  and  Volta  discovered  electric  contact, 
they  had  not  the  faintest  conception  that  their  experi- 
ments and  results  would  lead,  over  and  above  practical 
inventions,  to  new  views  of  the  unity  of  energy  and  of 
the  nature  of  matter.  Certain  discoveries,  already 
dimly  indicated,  are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to-day  nearly 
as  good  as  made,  since  attention  is  turned  to  them,  and 
is  on  the  track  of  all  the  phenomena  leading  up  to  them. 
The  transmutation  of  metals  is  only  a  question  of  time. 
The  appearance  of  the  moons  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn, 
rotating  round  their  planets  in  the  opposite  direction  to 
that  followed  by  all  other  moons,  must  surely  before 
lonrr  <rve  us  an  astronomical  and  cosmological  truth  that 
may  well  establish  the  theory  of  Kant  and  Laplace. 
But  t  ugh  their  shadows  of  coming  knowledge  are 
clenrl  ~nough  outlined  to  students  of  the  subjects,  they 
are  wholly  outside  of  the  range  of  supposition  of  the 
living  feneration.  It  is,  however,  not  only  by  the  sum 
of  knowledge  already  acquired  that  the  way  is  prepared 
for  ne^  discoveries  of  increasing  importance,  but  also 
by  psychological  constitution  of  the  select  few.  The 
capacit-  for  artificial  attention  develops  progressively. 
The  attitude  of  the  consciousness  becomes  more  and 


ESCHATOLOGY  369 

more  critical;  it  is  less  and  less  easily  satisfied  with 
surface  explanations  and  words  that  will  not  stand  the 
test  of  reality.  Observation  and  thought,  freeing  them- 
selves more  and  more  from  assumption,  are  less  and  less 
transcended  by  traditional  authority.  Hypotheses  re- 
tain their  heuristic  value  while  losing  their  detrimental 
tendency  to  blind  to  certain  aspects  of  a  truth  and 
suggest  others.  All  this,  however,  is  only  true  of  the 
select  few.  The  crowd  is  less  and  less  capable  of 
sharing  the  task,  of  observation  and  the  discoveries  to 
which  it  gives  rise,  partly  because  it  lacks  the  preliminary 
training,  which  becomes  increasingly  arduous  and 
lengthy,  partly  because  its  curiosity  about  nature  be- 
comes dulled.  We  have  seen,  as  a  fundamental  attri- 
bute of  all  living  things,  this  curiosity,  which,  in  the 
course  of  development,  rises  to  a  thirst  for  knowledge 
and  understanding.  It  is  their  foremost  weapon  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  It  is  thanks  to  it  that  it  is 
possible  for  any  living  thing  to  establish  itself  in  its 
environment  and  adapt  itself  to  it — that  is  to  say,  to 
avoid  its  dangers,  and  profit  by  such  favourable  con- 
ditions as  it  affords.  But  it  is  long  since  man  lived 
under  natural  conditions.  The  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation, therefore,  no  longer  compels  him  to  direct  his 
innate  curiosity  to  his  natural  environment.  Between 
him  and  it  there  stands  society,  of  which  he  is  an  organ- 
ized part,  and  the  institutions  within  whose  framework 
his  life  is  set.  Not  his  natural,  but  his  human,  en- 
vironment is  important  in  the  life  of  civilized  man — at 
any  rate,  he  is  far  less  conscious  of  the  significance  of 
nature  in  his  existence  than  of  the  men  with  whom  he 
lives  and  on  whom  he  depends.     His  natural  desire  for 


370     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

knowledge  is,  therefore,  directed  to  the  phenomena  of 
society  rather  than  of  nature,  and  therefore  the  average 
man  is  much  more  likely  to  increase  sociological  knowl- 
edge than  any  understanding  of  the  world  as  a  whole. 

Each  discovery,  besides  being  the  mother  of  new  dis- 
coveries, generally  initiates  practical  inventions  that 
simplify  and  enrich  life.  Discoveries  are  the  fruit  of 
the  desire  for  knowledge  that  is  ever  active  in  the  mind 
of  man.  Technical  inventions,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
stimulated  by  his  needs.  It  is  sometimes  maintained 
that  inventions  create  needs.  This  is  mere  talking  in 
the  air.  An  invention  may  give  birth  to  new  habits; 
it  may  develop  and  accentuate  a  need  in  many  cases, 
but  where  no  needs  existed  it  creates  none.  Thanks  to 
railways,  many  people  travel  nowadays  who  must  other- 
wise have  remained  at  home;  but  the  desire  to  travel 
existed  before  the  railway,  although  suppressed,  except 
in  cases  of  necessity,  because  it  was  extremely  difficult 
to  gratify.  Gas  and  electricity  have  habituated  us  to  a 
brilliant  light  unknown  before.  But  the  need  for  illu- 
mination at  night  existed  even  in  the  clays  of  torches  and 
oil-lamps,  though  it  could  be  but  poorly  satisfied  with 
the  existing  means.  No  inventor  ever  tried  to  construct 
a  thing  for  which  there  was  no  desire.  On  the  con- 
trary, inventive  brains  pondered  over  existing  needs 
until  they  hit  upon  something  which  seemed  to  them  to 
satisfy  these  needs  better  than  anything  hitherto  known, 
or  for  the  first  time.  Well-read  people  are  very  fond 
of  rummaging  through  the  authors  of  previous  cen- 
turies for  a  more  or  less  clear  foreshadowing,  or  even 
an  exact  description,  of  various  inventions  not  realized 
until  many  generations  later.     In  the  seventeenth  cen- 


ESCHATOLOGY  371 

tury  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  gives  directions  for  a  flying- 
machine  that  contain  the  germs  of  the  air-balloon  as  well 
as  the  kite.  Almost  two  hundred  years  before  him 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  first  studied  the  question  of  human 
flight,  and  arrived  at  solutions  not  very  different  from 
that  of  to-day.  In  the  eighteenth  century  Legends 
Burgess  of  Miinchhausen  describe  how  the  sound  in  the 
post-horn  had  frozen  up,  and  then  thawed  again,  in 
which,  if  one  has  the  mind,  one  may  see  a  humorous 
suggestion  of  the  phonograph.  Galilei  recounts,  in  his 
"  Dialogue,"  x  a  pleasant  tale  of  an  inventor,  who  said 
he  could  transmit  conversation  between  two  people  three 
thousand  miles  distant  from  one  another  by  means  of 
magnetic  needles  attuned  in  a  certain  way.  May  not 
this  be  an  anticipation  of  the  telephone?  The  answer 
is,  No.  This  is  no  anticipation,  no  preparation  for 
later  inventions,  but  mere  wish  and  desire — the  mere 
expression  of  a  need  that  has  been  felt,  and  for  which 
the  imagination  weaves  visionary  gratifications  before 
the  reason  sees  any  means  of  realizing  them.     Man  is 

1  Dialogo  di  Galileo  Galilei  Linceo,  matematico  sopraordinario 
dellc  studio  di  Pisa,  etc.,  dove  nei  contressi  di  quattro  giornate 
si  dircorre  sopra  i  due  massimi  sistemi  del  mondo,  Tolemaico  e 
Copernicano.  In  Fiorenza,  Per  Gio.  Batista  Landini,  1632,  p.  88: 
"  You  remind  me  of  someone  who  wanted  to  sell  me  the  secret  of 
conversing  with  someone  two  or  three  thousand  miles  away  by  means 
of  a  harmony  between  magnetic  needles  ('per  via  di  certa  simpatia 
di  aghi  calamtati! ').  I  replied  that  I  would  gladly  purchase  it, 
but  would  like  to  see  it  tried ;  I  should  be  satisfied  with  remaining 
in  one  room,  while  he  was  in  another.  He  replied  that  the  experiment 
could  not  be  properly  seen  at  such  a"  short  distance.  Thereupon  I 
dismissed  him,  with  the  remark  that  I  could  not  very  well  go  to 
Cairo  or  Moscow  to  see  the  experiment,  but  if  he  would  go  thither,  I 
would  gladly  remain  in  Venice,  and  speak  with  him  from  there." 


372      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

conscious  of  longing  for  relief  from  some  particular 
evil,  or  for  the  alteration  of  his  condition  generally. 
Above  all,  he  would  fain  live  for  ever,  freed  from  death 
and  all  sicknesses  and  infirmities.  He  would  like  to 
keep  his  youth  for  ever.  He  would  like  to  acquire 
without  exertion  treasures  and  delights,  the  fulfilment 
of  all  his  wishes.  He  would  like  to  overcome  all  the 
limitations  of  matter,  of  the  flesh,  and  of  the  senses; 
to  be  able  to  see,  hear,  speak,  and  feel,  without  regard 
to  distance  or  any  other  obstacle ;  to  traverse  seas,  moun- 
tains, and  continents  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and 
annihilate  space  with  the  rapidity  of  thought.  He 
would  like  all  this,  and  because  he  would  like  it  he  has 
always  invented  fairy-tales,  in  which  the  wish  is  by 
some  miracle  realized.  The  idea  of  continued  existence 
after  death,  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  and  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  has  arisen  from  the  same  human 
longing  to  which  are  due  such  inventions  as  the  stories 
of  the  well  of  youth,  the  conjuring-stick,  spells,  the  cap 
of  darkness,  the  talisman  that  makes  the  body  in- 
vulnerable, the  cloak  that  enables  one  to  fly  through  the 
air;  which  has  inspired  the  legends  of  Daedalus  and 
Icarus,  of  Albert  the  Great,  of  Raymond  Lully,  of  the 
Count  of  St.  Germain,  and  all  the  medieval  wizards, 
coiners  and  devil's  allies;  which  is  expressed  in  the 
fantastic  pictures  of  the  future  drawn  by  authors  who 
imagine  a  time  when  men  will  fly,  live  under  water, 
walk  through  mountains,  see  through  walls  and  rocks, 
and  talk  with  their  fellows  at  the  Antipodes. 

Human  desire  gives  inventors  their  direction;  it 
polarizes  their  thinking.  Their  consciousness  is  wholly 
devoted  to  the   needs   they   feel.     Every   advance   in 


ESCHATOLOGY  373 

knowledge  must  at  once  assist  them  in  their  search  for 
the  satisfaction  of  some  old  longing,  a  new  and  more 
highly  differentiated  impulse.  They  appropriate  every 
scientific  discovery  as  it  is  made,  and  endeavour  to  use 
it  for  the  practical  realization  of  what  seemed  im- 
possible dreams.  On  the  other  hand,  they  neglect  dis- 
coveries that  are  unconnected  with  satisfaction  of  any 
human  need,  even  though  they  may  revolutionize  the 
conception  of  the  world.  On  the  whole,  research  sees 
only  what  it  is  prepared  to  see,  and  tends  generally  to 
discover  phenomena  that  conform  to  the  stage  of  knowl- 
edge at  the  time,  very  seldom  such  as  would  reverse  it. 
In  the  same  way  invention  is  confined  almost  exclusively 
within  the  range  of  needs,  and  hardly  ever  feels  a 
temptation  to  contrive  a  novelty  that  supplies  no  felt 
want.  Near  Phaestus,  in  Crete,  a  slab  of  clay,  16  cen- 
timetres thick,  was  found,  with  more  than  120  hiero- 
glyphics carved  on  either  side.1  A  stamp  with  these 
signs  raised  upon  it  must  have  been  pressed  into  the 
soft  clay,  probably  several  times.  In  a  word,  printing 
— at  least  block-printing — had  been  invented  in  pre- 
historic Crete.  The  invention  was,  in  fact,  made  when 
the  first  seal-ring,  cylinder,  or  stone,  was  engraved  from 
which  an  unlimited  number  of  impressions  could  be 
obtained.  Nevertheless,  the  invention  lay  disregarded 
for  thousands  of  years.  Why?  Because  there  was  no 
need  for  a  rapid  multiplication  of  writing  and  images. 
There  were  too  few  educated  people,  too  few  able  to 
read,  and  intercourse  was  too  difficult  for  there  to  have 
been  any  need  of  reproductions.     But  when  the  need 

1  Communication  of  M.  Salomon  Reinach  to  the  Academie  des  In- 
scriptions at  Paris,  Comptes  Rendus,  1908,  p.  478. 


374     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

for  books  arose,  and  the  possibility  of  an  extended 
market  for  them,  the  invention  of  printing  followed — 
the  development  of  a  primitive  thought  and  of  a  process 
that  had  been  employed  for  three  or  four  thousand 
years. 

Our  knowledge  of  nature  undoubtedly  makes  it  pos- 
sible for  us  to-day  to  create  many  ingenious  contrivances 
and  implements,  and  transform  energy  in  many  ways  of 
which  no  one  has  yet  thought.  But  no  one  will  think 
of  them  until  a  need  arises  and  demands  satisfaction. 
It  is  safe  to  assert  that  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past, 
technical  invention  will  be  determined  by  the  needs  and 
desires,  if  not  of  all  men,  at  least  of  a  great  number  of 
men.  Berthelot's  prophecy  that  chemistry  will  succeed 
in  concentrating  in  a  tiny  pill  all  the  carbonaceous  and 
nitrogenous  matter  needed  by  the  human  organism,  and 
substituting  it  for  all  animal  and  vegetable  food,  is  cer- 
tainly false.  The  digestive  canal,  which  extends  from 
the  mouth  to  the  rectum,  with  all  its  apparatus  of 
nerves,  glands,  and  muscles,  is  designed  to  receive  and 
assimilate  animal  and  vegetable  matter,  and  acts  in 
man  as  a  permanent  cause  of  physical  sensation.  It  is 
the  source  of  feelings  of  lively  pleasure  and  pain,  which 
are  apprehended  by  the  consciousness  as  needs.  Ber- 
thelot's pill  could  never  satisfy  them,  and  that  is  why 
it  will  never  be  invented,  even  as  a  freak,  in  any  chemical 
laboratory.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  all  the  needs  of  which  men  are  conscious  will  pro- 
duce inventions  to  satisfy  them  in  whole  or  part.  Hugo 
Michel 1  has  collected  in  his  exceedingly  interesting  little 

1  Hugo  Michel,   "  Introduction  to  Invention :  the  Way  of  Wealth," 
Berlin,   1906. 


ESCHATOLOGY  375 

book  650  inventions  for  which  a  definite  need  exists  to- 
day. Some  are  important,  others  insignificant — the 
flying-machine  (section  75,  Sport,  Games,  Aerial  Navi- 
gation, and  Public  Entertainments)  side  by  side  with  a 
"hygienic  substitute  for  bread"  (section  2,  Baking), 
and  "  a  transparent  material  for  those  taking  sun-baths  " 
(section  3,  Clothing).  The  author  is  convinced  that 
all  these  inventions  will  be  realized  within  a  measurable 
distance  of  time,  and  I  share  his  conviction.  But  the 
needs  which  he  leaves  out  of  account  are  the  oldest  and 
most  profound  in  human  nature.  He  does  not  speak 
of  the  desire  for  eternal  youth,  eternal  life,  annihila- 
tion of  time  and  space,  control  over  all  the  forces  of 
nature.  It  is  a  subject  upon  which  the  level-headed 
technologist  does  not  enter.  But  one  may  venture  to 
predict  that  this  desire,  too,  will,  to  some  extent,  be 
fulfilled.  Death  cannot  be  got  rid  of,  but  life  may 
be  prolonged  beyond  the  measure  of  to-day.1  Old  age 
cannot  be  wholly  obviated,  but  the  limits  of  youth  may 
be  extended  by  many  decades.2  Disease  may  be  pre- 
vented and  cured.  Rapidity  and  security  of  intercourse 
may  increase  to  such  an  extent  that  man  will  be  in  a 
sense  ubiquitous  in  his  planet.  Air  and  water  will  pre- 
sent no  obstacles.  He  will  fly  as  he  now  drives,  and 
travel  under  water  as  he  now  travels  over  it.  He  will 
learn  to  use  natural  forces  that  to-day  do  not  obey,  and 
even  threaten  him,  and  to  provide  himself  with  pleasures 
in  all  the  quarters  of  the  globe.     All  this  will  certainly 

1  Jean  Finot,  "  La  Philosophic  de  la  Longevite,"  Paris,  1900,  p.  74. 

*  Elie  Metchnikoff,  "  Etudes  sur  la  nature  humaine,"  Paris,  1903, 
chap,  x.,  "  Introduction  a  l'etude  scientifique  de  la  vieillesse,"  pp. 
294  el  seq.     See  also  p.  390. 


376     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

happen,  because  mankind  desires  it,  and  because  the 
whole  history  of  the  development  of  civilization  teaches 
that  man  has  always  been  successful,  if  not  in  satisfying 
his  needs  completely,  at  least  in  getting  as  near  that 
satisfaction  as  possible. 

So  much  may  fairly  be  anticipated  as  to  the  future  of 
invention  and  discovery.  Certain  cautious  conclusions, 
too,  may  be  ventured  as  to  the  general  destiny  of  man- 
kind, so  long  as  we  avoid  entering  into  any  of  the  con- 
crete details  that  mark  the  course  of  history — wars, 
alliances,  revolutions,  class  strife,  and  the  rise  and  de- 
cline of  particular  States.  No  one  can  foresee  and  fore- 
tell when  and  where  an  Alexander  the  Great,  Napoleon, 
or  Bismarck  will  be  born,  a  Battle  of  Marathon,  Actium, 
Chalons,  Hastings,  Waterloo,  Sadowa  fought,  a  Polish 
kingdom  destroyed  and  partitioned,  an  Italy  created,  an 
India  acquired  by  England,  or  a  Cuba  lost  by  Spain. 
To  historians  such  men  and  events  seem  of  the  greatest 
importance;  they  seem  to  them  the  real  content  of 
history.  In  reality,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  they  have 
no  real  or  permanent  effect  on  the  history  of  humanity. 
Whether  a  people  groan  under  oppression  or  enjoy 
freedom,  whether  they  are  ill  or  wisely  ruled,  birth,  love, 
and  death  go  on  with  uninterrupted  regularity,  if  in 
different  ratios.  Needs  must  be  satisfied  in  a  land 
under  foreign  dominion  as  well  as  in  an  independent 
one.  Everywhere  individuals  and  classes  look  after 
their  own  interests,  so  far  as  they  are  aware  of  them, 
with  all  the  energy  they  possess;  everywhere  they  be- 
come habituated  to  the  ills  they  can  bear  or  which  it 
would  cost  them  too  great  an  effort  to  overcome,  and 
rise  with  desperate  resolution  against  them  if  they  be- 


ESCHATOLOGY  377 

come  unendurable.  Waves  rise  and  pass  over  the  sur- 
face of  humanity,  sometimes  merely  ruffling  it,  some- 
times rising  mountain  high.  One  can  watch  a  particular 
wave  rising,  arching,  passing,  sinking  down  again.  But 
that  it  is  not  worth  this  interest,  from  the  point  of  view 
either  of  knowledge  or  of  the  destiny  of  the  species,  is 
sufficiently  evident  to  anyone  with  the  smallest  insight, 
since  it  is  no  more  than  a  particular  instance  of  the 
universal  law  of  wavelike  movement.  The  rise  and 
fall,  eddies  and  whirlpools  that  agitate  the  surface, 
never  penetrate  fully  to  the  depths  below;  its  mightiest 
convulsions  leave  them  unmoved.  Events  that  may 
determine  the  destiny  of  individuals  leave  no  trace  on 
the  life  of  the  species  of  the  whole.  In  human  life 
everything  happens  as  a  consequence  of  the  mode  of  re- 
action to  external  influences,  whether  natural  or  human 
in  the  origin,  which  is  determined  by  its  organic  struc- 
ture. Since  the  physical  and  psychic  organism  will  not 
alter  within  a  measurable  distance  of  time,  its  behaviour 
will  always  conform  to  those  same  laws  that  have  regu- 
lated it  in  the  course  of  its  history.  One  possibility 
must  be  left  open :  after  ten  thousand  years  the  present 
climate  of  the  earth  may  disappear,  and  be  replaced  by 
that  prevailing  when  the  human  species  first  appeared. 
If,  as  then,  the  differences  between  the  seasons  were  to 
disappear,  the  ice  to  melt  at  the  poles  and  in  every 
glacier,  eternal  spring  to  smile  even  in  the  highest  lati- 
tudes, and  all  over  our  planet  animals  and  plants  to 
enjoy  tropical  conditions,  then  a  profound  revolution 
must  take  place  in  the  existence  of  man.  He  would 
cease  to  feel  most  of  those  needs  whose  satisfaction  is  the 
main  purpose  of  his  exertions,  such  as  clothing,  dwell- 


378      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

ings,  nourishment,  and  artificial  warmth.  Once  more, 
as  in  the  beginning,  when  he,  like  all  other  living  things, 
was  the  spoilt  child  of  nature,  he  could  live  and  let  live, 
free  from  toil  and  necessity.  He  would  not,  of  course, 
even  so,  return  to  a  condition  of  primitive  barbarism; 
he  would  no  longer  be  satisfied  to  vegetate  like  a  satis- 
fied animal  in  a  well-stored  manger;  his  intellectual 
needs  would  remain,  and  probably,  also,  the  habits  ac- 
quired during  his  severe  struggle  for  existence,  among 
them  being,  no  doubt,  some  tendency  to  parasitism  and 
to  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  however  greatly  modi- 
fied its  form.  Institutions  and  opinions  would  survive 
from  the  day  of  necessity  to  that  of  superfluity — arrange- 
ments which,  though  sensible  and  practical  when  origi- 
nated, would  have  neither  meaning  nor  use  under  new 
conditions.  Thrift  and  providence  would  still  be  es- 
teemed as  virtues,  although,  with  manna  falling  every 
day  from  heaven,  they  are  an  eccentricity,  if  not  a  vice. 
Altruism  and  citizenship  would  still  be  regarded  as* 
moral  sentiments,  although  they  would  have  lost  their 
purpose  in  a  world  where  no  one  needed  the  help  of  his 
fellow.  The  strong,  select  few  would  still  feel  atavistic 
tendencies  to  rule  and  command,  although  there  would 
no  longer  obtain  any  biological  advantage  by  power 
over  others.  Gradually  all  these  surviving  traits  would 
recede,  and  the  primitive  instincts  atrophied  in  man 
would  revive.  The  consciousness,  enriched  by  an  ample 
store  of  ideas,  would  acquire  a  tone  of  feeling  entirely 
unlike  that  existing  to-day.  The  State  might  not  dis- 
solve, but  its  organization  would  relax.  It  would  have 
nothing  to  defend,  since  there  would  be  no  inducement 
to  deeds  of  violence.     The  competition  for  gain  between 


ESCHATOLOGY  379 

individuals  and  for  the  possession  of  the  earth  between 
nations  would  cease:  war  and  conquest  would  cease. 
If  the  ambitious  still  thirsted  for  renown,  they  would 
find  it  in  the  intellectual  fields  of  art  or  science.  There 
would  be  no  political  history:  only  natural  history  and 
biography.  One  danger,  indeed,  would  still  threaten 
a  happiness  that  might  seem  without  a  cloud — that  of 
overpopulation.  Nature  at  its  most  luxuriant  can  only 
support  a  limited  number  of  living  things,  and  boundless 
demands  exhaust  her  riches.  Under  primitive  condi- 
tions the  cure  for  this  evil  lies  in  incessant  struggle  and 
the  extermination  of  the  weak.  A  high  civilization 
would  probably  prefer  to  establish  the  balance  between 
the  provision  made  by  nature  and  the  demands  of  those 
who  live  upon  her  and  maintain  it  by  limiting  of  the 
ratio  of  children  to  parents. 

Short  of  the  contingent  return  of  the  climate  of 
Paradise,  which,  if  the  learned  pundit'.0 1  remarkable  in- 
terpretation is  correct,  is  clearly  recalled  in  the  Vedanta 
and  Zend  Avesta,  history  will  always  be  what  it  has 
been  since  our  knowledge  of  it — a  dial  whose  hands  are 
moved  by  the  intellectual  characteristics  and  powers  of 
man.  The  stimuli  determining  human  action  are  al- 
ways the  same;  the  form  that  action  takes  varies  with 
the  knowledge  and  the  instruments  at  its  command. 
In  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  men  will  be  born  unequal, 
but  the  distance  between  the  select  few  and  the  average 
will  constantly  lessen.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that 
there  should  appear  to-day  in  any  nation  belonging  to 
the  white  race  a  man  so  much  above  his  fellow-country- 

1  Dr.  George  Biedenknapp,  "  The  North  Pole  as  the  Home  of  a 
People,"  Jena,  1906. 


380     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

men  as  were  the  mythical  eponymous  heroes  of  the  past, 
who  transformed  the  whole  face  of  life  by  the  civiliza- 
tion that  they  brought,  by  the  knowledge  of  the  enlight- 
enment they  spread,  and  who,  by  making  law,  purifying 
morals,  and  establishing  religion,  left  a  different  race 
of  men  from  that  which  they  found.  In  the  future 
this  will  be  even  less  possible.  The  time  of  demigods 
is  over.  The  initiative  to  all  social  progress,  all  im- 
provement in  laws,  institutions,  and  morals,  may  pro- 
ceed from  a  single  personality;  but  realization  is  the 
work  of  numerous  groups.  A  single  student  may  give 
to  scientific  discoveries  their  final  elucidation,  their  suc- 
cessful form,  but  they  are  essentially  the  common  work 
of  generations  of  savants.  Only  the  creations  of  art 
and  poetry  are  purely  individual  achievements,  and  even 
here  there  are  innumerable  links  between  one  work,  one 
author,  and  the  other,  and  every  poet,  every  artist,  will 
incorporate  in  his  work  the  best  that  has  been  attained 
by  his  predecessors. 

The  average  and  the  select  are  brought  nearer  to- 
gether, not  by  the  levelling  down  of  the  select,  but  by 
the  levelling  up  of  the  average.  The  capacity  for  sus- 
tained attention  develops.  The  consciousness,  con- 
stantly extending  its  scope,  is  able  to  grasp  a  greater 
number  of  ideas  at  one  and  the  same  time.  As  a  result, 
phenomena  are  more  exactly  observed,  perceptions  more 
accurately  combined,  and  conclusions  and  judgments 
more  correctly  formed.  In  a  word,  the  content  of 
thought  is  more  thoroughly  real,  there  is  less  psittacism, 
less  vagueness,  less  mysticism,  less  credulity,  a  more 
complete  adaptation  throughout  to  the  given  conditions 
of  existence.     Whether  the  association  of  ideas  will  be 


ESCHATOLOGY  381 

less  stereotyped  and  the  crowd  therefore  freed  from 
the  slavery  of  custom,  and  the  hatred  of  all  things  new, 
cannot  be  foreseen.  Experience,  so  far  as  it  goes,  teaches 
that  highly  civilized  men,  no  less  than  savages,  have 
great  trouble  in  forming  new  thought  combinations,  and 
avoid  it  whenever  they  can.  Civilized  man  is  superior 
in  knowledge  and  judgment  to  the  savage,  only  because 
in  his  plastic  and  receptive  childhood  and  youth  a  larger 
supply  of  valuable  and  varied  material  was  available 
for  his  mind.  His  education  over,  he  clings  fiercely  to 
what  he  has  learned  at  school  as  does  the  savage  to  his 
scanty  traditions,  and  reprobates  the  new  as  decidedly 
as  he  can  do. 

It  is  at  the  most  a  difference  of  a  generation.  The 
distance  between  nations,  like  that  between  individuals, 
will  diminish.  It  is  questionable  whether  there  is  any 
difference  in  the  capacity  for  development  possessed  by 
the  different  nations  of  the  white  races.  If  one  appear 
to  be  behind  the  others  in  civilization,  the  fact  may  be 
a  consequence  of  wars,  bad  government,  or  class  oppres- 
sion. The  more  backward  will,  no  doubt,  make  up  on 
the  more  advanced  so  soon  as  the  causes  are  removed 
that  have  checked  their  development.  There  has  long 
been  no  difference  in  education  and  culture  between  the 
members  of  the  upper  classes  of  the  different  peoples  of 
the  white  race.  All  are  represented  by  first-rate  achieve- 
ments in  science,  literature,  and  art,  which  show  that 
individual  genius  exists  in  all.  It  is  less  certain  whether 
the  different  races  are  equally  endowed.  Many  anthro- 
pologists, including  those  who  are  free  from  race 
fanaticism  and  a  blind  belief  in  the  superiority  of  the 
Aryans,  contest  this,  even  in  the  case  of  the  yellow  race, 


382     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

which  is  the  nearest  to  the  white,  and  which,  in  the  case 
of  the  Japanese,  has  given  proofs  of  creative  powers 
justifying  the  most  brilliant  forecasts.  One  fact  re- 
mains. Hitherto  the  white  race  alone  has  by  its  own 
strength  created  that  genuine  civilization  which  can 
only  rest  upon  knowledge.  Chinese,  Japanese,  Indians, 
and  Malays  have  attained  to  lofty  heights  in  aesthetics 
and  morals,  but  they  have  not  scaled  the  highest  peak 
of  science.  The  civilization  of  America  before  Colum- 
bus may  be  comparable  to  the  Asiatic,  not  to  the  Euro- 
pean. Negroes,  Redskins,  and  Australians  have  not 
transcended  the  rudimentary  civilization  of  the  Neo- 
lithic Age  in  Europe.  The  savage  races  are  no  longer 
isolated.  They  have  been  violently  brought  into  the 
vortex  of  universal  intercourse.  They  must  accept  the 
whites  as  their  teachers,  whether  they  will  or  no.  It 
remains  to  be  seen  what  they  will  do  in  this  hard  school. 
If  they  cannot  learn,  they  will  disappear.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  can  assimilate  the  knowledge  and 
judgments  of  the  white,  as  has  already  been  done  by 
many  Asiatics,  some  Redskins,  and  not  a  few  Maoris 
and  Hawaiians,  we  shall  not  long  be  able  to  speak  of 
higher  and  lower  races,  and  national  pride  will  have  to 
bend  before  the  fact  of  the  approximate  equality  of  all 
peoples. 

I  do  not  believe  that  all  differences  will  disappear  and 
all  types  amalgamate  in  a  comprehensive  uniformity. 
Among  the  commonplace  faces,  which  will  certainly  be 
extraordinarily  numerous,  some  characteristic  counte- 
nances will  always  stand  out.  The  perfection  of  the 
average  will  be  accompanied  by  an  ever  richer  differ- 
entiation,  which  will  bring  sufficient  variety  into  the 


ESCHATOLOGY  383 

aspect  of  the  world.  But  this  differentiation  will  affect 
rather  the  subordinate  details  of  life,  and  there  will  be 
much  more  conformity  than  now  exists  in  its  essentials — 
that  is  to  say,  the  human  race  will  approach  the  condi- 
tion of  biological  equilibrium.  Great  differences  be- 
tween the  individual  members  of  any  living  species  are 
always  a  consequence  and  a  sign  of  some  interruption 
of  the  natural  course  of  its  development.  They  prove 
that,  it  has  not  yet  reached  its  optimum.  As  the  condi- 
tions of  existence  become  more  favourable,  and  tend  to 
satisfy  organic  needs  more  fully,  a  greater  individual 
uniformity  appears.  Originally  the  human  species  can 
have  presented  very  few  deviations  from  the  main  type, 
over  and  above  the  sub-orders  or  races  into  which  it 
was  from  the  first  divided  by  skull  formation,  stature, 
and  colour  of  the  skin.  But  when  its  natural  conditions 
were  removed  by  the  change  of  terrestrial  climate,  the 
hard  struggle  for  existence  began,  and  the  supermen 
misused  their  superiority  in  an  easy  parasitism;  then 
individual  development  began  to  strain  in  different 
directions :  the  more  favoured  rose,  and  the  handicapped 
sank  more  and  more.  Thus  the  differences  developed 
to  which  history  testifies.  Gradually  that  more  perfect 
adaptation  to  the  nature  of  our  planet,  which  is  the 
biological  aspect  of  civilization,  restored  over  a  wide 
area  the  conditions  under  which  the  species  first  lived, 
and  included  in  these  conditions  is  a  considerable  meas- 
ure of  individual  uniformity — at  least,  within  a  single 
primitive  race. 

The  narrowing  of  the  limits  within  which  the  varia- 
tion of  the  human  type  takes  place  has  important  social 
and  economic  results.     If  an  increasing  number  of  men 


384     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

become  capable  of  sustained  attention,  and  think  by 
perceptions  rather  than  by  acoustic  signs;  if  critical 
reason,  the  power  of  logical  thought,  and  a  sense  of 
reality  become  common  property,  the  exploitation  of 
the  weak  by  the  strong  becomes  increasingly  difficult,  and 
at  last  almost  impossible.  The  weak  will  protect  them- 
selves against  brute  force  by  closer  combination,  and 
the  cunning  subterfuges  of  the  parasite  will  lose  their 
efficacy  when  the  crowd  has  grown  clear-sighted  enough 
to  see  through  them.  When  exploitation  ceases  to  be  a 
remunerative  employment  for  the  superman,  all  the  ad- 
ministrative and  social  institutions,  created  and  devel- 
oped in  order  to  make  that  exploitation  easy  or  possible, 
will  gradually  crumble  away,  and  finally  disappear, 
without  the  need  of  any  violent  revolution  to  destroy 
them.  The  form  of  the  State  will  presumably  endure, 
but  it  will  receive  a  new  content.  Instead  of  being  a 
soldier,  it  will  be  a  judge,  a  teacher,  an  architect,  and, 
to  some  extent,  a  policeman.  In  other  words,  the  State 
will  no  longer  regard  it  as  its  first  function  to  maintain, 
against  other  nations,  the  collective  egoism  developed 
in  its  people,  as  the  outcome  of  the  individual  egoism 
of  a  sovereign  and  his  servants;  to  wrest  advantages 
from  other  States  by  war,  or  the  possibility  of  war,  and 
to  be  armed  against  a  similar  undertaking  on  their  part. 
War  will  become  as  impossible  as  is  to-day  an  officially 
organized  attack  on  the  part  of  a  civilized  State  on  the 
territory  of  a  neighbouring  State,  for  the  sake  of  plun- 
dering and  carrying  off  women  and  cattle.  To  a  man 
like  Count  Moltke,  steeped  to  the  lips  in  feudal  tradi- 
tion, eternal  peace  must  appear  "  a  dream,  and  not  a 
beautiful  one."     But 'no  one  who  can  rise  above  his 


ESCHATOLOGY  385 

prejudices  and  normal  habits  of  thought  can  doubt  that 
war  will  fade  to  the  horrible  recollection  of  a  barbaric 
past,  when  individual  citizens  are  intelligent  enough 
to  comprehend  that  they  could  not  conceivably  be  worse 
employed  than  in  leaving  their  own  trades  and  profes- 
sions, exposing  their  health  and  life  to  the  most  appall- 
ing dangers,  in  order,  at  no  advantage  to  themselves,  to 
destroy  the  life  and  goods  of  others,  by  way  of  con- 
vincing them  of  their  own  superiority.  If  no  one  de- 
sires to  attack,  no  one  need  trouble  about  defence.  The 
necessity  of  an  army  ceases,  and  with  it  all  that  pic- 
turesque child's  play,  the  "  colour  of  war  " — that  is  to 
say,  gay  uniforms,  shakos,  stripes,  and  the  less  innocu- 
ous ideas  connected  with  the  colours,  the  position  of  the 
officer,  and  the  duty  of  abject  obedience.  If  there  is 
no  army,  diplomacy  has  no  longer  any  function.  A 
court  of  arbitration  will  decide  such  disputes  as  may 
arise  between  nations,  respecting  the  regulation  of  com- 
mon rivers  and  the  protection  of  migrating  fishes  and 
birds  that  travel  from  one  country  to  another;  an  in- 
ternational authority,  like  the  International  Postal 
Bureau  at  Berne,  will  regulate  the  routes  of  the  rail- 
ways of  the  world,  postal  and  telegraphic  communica- 
tion, common  protection  against  epidemics,  and  the 
extradition  of  criminals.  Nothing  will  be  left  for  emis- 
saries and  ambassadors  to  do,  since  the  relations  be- 
tween nations  will  be  limited  to  the  settlement  of  techni- 
cal points  which,  as  concerning  several  States,  and  in- 
volving matters  in  which  violence  and  passion  have  no 
place,  must  be  settled  by  a  conference  of  experts. 

The  State  will  concentrate  the  energies  of  its  people 
on  maintaining  order  and  security  at  home,  in  grappling 


386     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

with  such  problems  as  ignorance,  disease,  and  vice,  which 
are  beyond  the  capacity  of  individuals,  and  in  carrying 
out  public  works  of  an  extensive  and  costly  character. 
The  course  of  legal  development  will  show  considerable 
divergence  from  the  Roman  conception  of  property. 
The  principle  that  no  law  may  be  retrospective  will  not 
be  maintained  as  obstinately  as  it  is  at  present.  Ex- 
cessive fortunes  will  doubtless  be  attacked  with  search- 
ing questions  as  to  their  origin,  and  rules  of  equity 
framed  with  the  greatest  subtlety,  so  as  to  track  the 
exploitation  of  the  weak  in  all  its  most  secret  windings 
and  retreats,  to  prevent  it  by  penalties,  and  ruthlessly 
deprive  those  who  exercise  it  of  their  gains.  The  pur- 
pose of  public  instruction  will  not  be  to  bring  up  a  race 
of  pious  church-goers,  submissive  subjects,  blindly  obedi- 
ent soldiers,  and  patriots  always  ready  to  shout 
"  Huzza !  "  but  to  transmit  to  the  rising  generation  the 
established  results  of  the  scientific  labours  of  former 
generations,  to  develop  their  critical  powers  and  their 
feeling  for  reality,  and  to  raise  thern  to  a  rational  en- 
joyment of  the  beauties  of  nature  and  art.  A  genera- 
tion thus  schooled  will  not  lend  itself  readily  to  ex- 
ploitation by  force  or  fraud.  It  will  be  intelligent 
enough  to  follow  its  money  as  it  passes  into  the  Ex- 
chequer, the  Customs-house,  the  bank,  and  the  joint- 
stock  company,  and  see  what  happens  to  it.  Taxes  can 
no  longer  be  squandered  on  a  now  superfluous  army, 
nor  on  the  fiscal  beneficiaries  and  sinecurists,  maintained 
because  there  is  latent  in  the  State  of  to-day  the  idea 
that  it  is  really  a  brilliant  and  luxurious  Court,  whose 
dazzling  dignitaries  and  host  of  superfluous  courtiers 
serve  to  exalt  the  pomp  of  majesty.     Protective  duties, 


ESCHATOLOGY  387 

will  be  as  impossible  as  trusts  and  cartels,  since  no  one 
will  be  prepared  to  pay  toll  to  individuals  or  groups  in 
return  for  no  corresponding  services.  Joint-stock  com- 
panies will  no  longer  gather  in  the  money  of  small 
savers,  and  then  manage  it  so  that  the  largest  possible 
share  goes  into  the  pockets  of  directors,  agents,  and 
other  middlemen,  and  the  profits  of  the  rest  first  re- 
munerate the  paid  officials,  many  of  whom  are  quite 
superfluous,  and  many  overpaid,  while  the  poor  share- 
holders come  last,  and  get  a  very  modest  share  indeed. 
No  one  will  part  with  the  fruits  of  his  labour  except 
in  return  for  the  satisfaction  of  some  need  or  an  aesthetic 
pleasure.  As  the  future  darkens  for  the  exploiter  it 
brightens  for  every  sort  of  art  and  talent.  Positive 
religions  have  no  place  in  a  society  in  which  the  sense 
of  reality  is  strongly  developed  and  the  wits  of  every 
man  are  sharpened  against  the  parasite.  They  are 
doomed  to  destruction,  however  the  present  constitution 
of  mankind  may  seem  to  contradict  it.  No  man  of  sane 
intellect  will  continue  to  believe  in  their  unproved 
dogmas  or  their  twaddling  transcendentalism.  Their 
failure  to  induce  the  many  to  submit  patiently  to  ex- 
ploitation will  remove  their  value  in  the  eyes  of  the 
parasitic  class  and  the  protection  afforded  them.  No 
one  will  be  inclined  to  pay  for  the  support  of  priests 
when  they  are  recognized  on  every  side  to  be  perfectly 
useless  members  of  society.  Public  worship  will  be 
peacefully  and  naturally  brought  to  an  end  by  the  State's 
dissolving  its  connection  with  the  Churches,  and  leaving 
them  to  themselves.  The  chapels  will  be  deserted;  the 
clergy  will  fail  to  attract  recruits,  since  no  young  man 
with  a  faculty  for  work  and  study  will  wish  to  dedicate 


388     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

himself  to  a  profession  that  neither  insures  him  a  live- 
lihood nor  carries  any  respect  with  it.  With  the  rapid 
extinction  of  the  priesthood,  the  religion  it  serves  will 
soon  be  a  historical  memory.  The  manner  in  which  an 
enlightened  humanity  will  satisfy  the  eternal  necessity 
for  exaltation,  consolation,  and  the  thought  of  eternity, 
I  have  tried  to  show  in  my  sixth  chapter. 

Although  the  select  few  will  no  longer  be  markedly 
above  the  average  level,  there  will  always  be  supermen, 
and  they  will,  even  in  the  future,  feel  the  desire  for 
power  and  domination  over  the  many.  But  this  atavis- 
tic desire  to  rule  will  no  longer  display  itself  in  the 
historical  and  now-existing  forms :  it  will  no  longer  be 
directed  to  parasitism.  It  will  breed  neither  con- 
querors nor  dictators.  No  one  will  be  able  to  think 
of  setting  a  crown  on  his  head  and  founding  a  dynasty. 
There  may  still  be  some  attraction  in  the  position  of 
President  or  Minister  in  a  community  based  upon  equal 
citizen  rights,  but  the  attraction  will  not  be  very  power- 
ful. In  a  matter-of-fact  community,  which  eschews  the 
adventurous  and  the  capricious,  and  rewards  its  servants 
strictly  according  to  the  utility  of  their  work,  executive 
power  will  not  afford  any  special  satisfaction  to  pride, 
or  even  to  vanity,  imagination,  or  bare  greed.  Ambi- 
tion must  seek  other  fields  and  other  ends.  The  strong, 
able,  and  superior  man  will  always  seek  the  first  place 
within  his  circle — the  leadership  of  a  trade  group,  ad- 
ministrative body,  political  party,  national  assembly, 
or  whatever  it  may  be.  He  will  attain  it  by  oratorical 
gifts,  wise  counsel,  success  in  business,  or  determination 
of  character,  and  firyd  the  reward  of  his  exertions  and 
capacity  in  the  reputation,  admiration,  respect,  and  per- 


ESCHATOLOGY  .  389 

sonal  Influence  that  cannot  be  measured  in  terms  of 
money.  The  exclusively  moral  nature  of  the  prizes 
which  ambition  can  hope  to  attain  will  exercise  selection 
among  the  ambitious.  Public  recognition  will  be  sought 
only  by  two  classes — those  who  are  eaten  up  by  personal 
vanity  and  those  in  whom  the  social  conscience  is  more 
than  commonly  developed.  That  thirst  for  power, 
however,  which  takes  its  rise  in  the  consciousness  of 
brute  strength,  in  gross  selfishness,  or  vulgar  self-in- 
terest, and  which  is  simply  parasitic  in  its  aim,  must,  if 
it  cannot  be  refined  or  elevated,  be  suppressed  as  an 
evil  propensity  by  a  sustained  exertion  of  the  will,  or 
else,  finding  an  outlet  in  crime,  it  will  be  tracked  down 
and  exterminated  by  society. 

A  humanity  without  adventures,  wars  or  revolutions, 
without  superstition  or  mysticism,  without  overweening 
and  dazzling  rulers  and  swarms  of  blindly  devoted  ser- 
vants, an  equal  society  of  enlightened,  educated,  and 
intelligent  human  beings,  who  are  all  healthy  and 
moderate,  who  all  work,  all  attain  a  ripe  old  age,  and 
all  live  orderly  and  contented  lives,  much  in  the  same 
manner — such  a  humanity  seems  horribly  tedious,  and 
would  certainly  fill  the  romantic  spirits  of  the  present 
day  with  a  desperate  longing  for  barbarism  in  its  oldest 
and  wildest  forms.  But  the  future  only  appears  thus 
colourless  and  uniform  because  our  eyes  are  accustomed 
to  regard  the  present  aspect  of  humanity  as  picturesque. 
The  contrast  between  castle  and  cottage,  luxury  and 
destitution,  triumphant  exploitation  and  unreflecting  sub- 
servience, is  interesting,  and  not  repellent,  to  the  man 
who  regards  it  with  the  half-conscious  idea  of  rising  to 
an  exercise  of  exploitation  himself.     Party  strife,  politi- 


390     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

cal  intrigue,  and  diplomatic  complications  make  history 
as  exciting  as  a  novel.  Supermen  can  rise  above  the 
herd,  an  inspiring  example  to  the  vain  and  the  self- 
seeking.  But  all  the  satisfactions  that  such  a  state  of 
things  suggests  to  the  imagination  are  purchased  by  a 
great  mass  of  human  suffering,  which  it  has  been  the 
incessant  endeavour  of  humanity  to  remove  or  alleviate. 
Knowledge,  as  it  widens  and  deepens,  will  reduce  almost 
to  a  vanishing-point  the  evils  that  men  impose  on  one 
another — evils  which  form  the  most  horrible  of  their 
sufferings.  The  noble  pleasure  of  art  and  science  will 
become  more  general  and  more  intense  as  the  intellect 
and  the  nervous  system  become  capable  of  more  subtle 
enjoyment.  Acute  joy  will  be  provided  by  the  organic 
impulses  and  kinaestheses  of  youth,  joy,  love,  health,  and 
the  sense  of  vigour,  which  must  certainly  be  richer  and 
more  robust  when  man  is  free  from  care,  and  lives 
in  the  lap  of  luxury,  than  when  he  was  always  restless 
and  often  starving.  The  beauty  of  the  future  will  be 
different  from  that  of  the  present— -more  natural,  more 
lofty,  and  more  harmonious;  and  it  certainly  will  not 
feel  any  privation  in  the  want  of  the  Sadie  alloy  of 
poverty  and  sorrow,  sin  and  cruelty. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY— CONCLUSION 

I  have  now  reached  the  end  of  my  inquiry,  and  it  only 
remains  to  take  a  comprehensive  survey  of  its  results. 

The  hundreds  of  thousands  of  volumes  of  written 
history  that  fill  so  many  libraries  may  amuse  the  reader 
by  the  exciting  adventures  and  varied  careers  that  they 
describe:  they  do  not  contain  the  smallest  amount  of 
scientific  knowledge.  The  historians  describe  events  in 
a  traditional  order,  and  estimate  them  according  to  a 
subjective  illusion,  attracted  by  the  unusual,  and  blind 
to  the  invisible  processes — regular,  permanent,  and  uni- 
versal— which  are  alone  of  real  significance.1  When 
Claude  Henri  de  St.  Simon 2  says,  "  History  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  only  the  biography 
of  might,"  and  Count  Joseph  de  Maistre  says,  "  For 

1 E.  Vacherot  ("La  science  et  la  conscience,"  Paris,  1870,  p.  92): 
"  An  epoch,  a  race,  a  nation,  or  a  class,  may  be  studied  ...  by  con- 
sidering the  actions  and  movements  of  great  historic  figures.  .  .  . 
The  picture  is  gloriously  dramatic,  and  its  aesthetic  effect  wonderful. 
But  once  the  mutual  connection  and  interdependence  of  events  has 
been  grasped  .  .  .  there  is  perceived,  behind  the  superficial  drama  that 
occupies  the  front  of  the  stage,  at  the  back  of  the  theatre,  an  action 
in  progress  which,  though  far  less  lively,  brilliant,  and  exciting  to 
the  ordinary  spectator,  is  infinitely  more  fascinating  to  the  observer 
who  seeks  to  penetrate  behind  the  mystery  of  phenomena." 

s  Claude  Henri  de  St.  Simon,  "  Memoire  sur  la  Science  de  rhomme," 
Paris,  1857. 

501 


392      THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

three  centuries  history  has  been  an  uninterrupted  con- 
spiracy against  the  truth,"  they  suggest  limitations  for 
which  there  is  no  foundation.  Not  only  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  history  merely  the 
biography  of  might,  it  has  been  so  since,  and  is  so  to  this 
day,  in  spite  of  the  chapters  dealing  with  sociology  and 
the  development  of  moral  ideas  that  historians  nowadays 
amuse  themselves  by  introducing  into  their  works;  not 
only  for  three  centuries  has  it  been  an  uninterrupted 
conspiracy  against  the  truth,  it  has  always  been  so,  ever 
since  the  earliest  chronicler  sat  him  down  to  record  the 
events  within  his  knowledge,  for  the  honour  and  glory 
of  those  whom  he  loved,  reverenced,  or  feared,  and  the 
defamation  of  those  whom  he  hated.  History  did  not 
begin  to  be  written  until  the  most  important  and  preg- 
nant period  of  human  development  was  over,  and  even 
in  the  last  five  or  six  thousand  years  it  includes  but  a 
small  portion  of  events.  Although  the  darkness  of  the 
past  is  but  partially  illuminated  by  it,  it  present^  such 
a  connected  picture  as  only  the  most  lawless  knowledge 
could  justify.1  Even  in  the  rare  cases  where  such  ex- 
ternal processes  as  are  visible  to  the  senses  are  recorded 
with  tolerable  accuracy,  the  real  motive  power  is  over- 


1  Professor  Hugo  Winckler,  in  a  lecture  read  before  the  Asiatic 
Society  in  Berlin,  November,  1906,  gives  the  results  of  the  ex- 
cavations at  Boghazkoi,  where  Cheta,  the  capital  of  an  empire  of 
the  same  name,  was  discovered.  Nothing  is  known  of  Cheta,  save 
that  a  Theban  inscription  mentions  a  treaty  between  its  Emperor 
and  Rameses  III.  But  between  1500  and  1100  B.  c.  this  empire  had, 
in  all  probability,  a  profound  influence  on  Judaea  and  Israel,  an  in- 
fluence hitherto  unsuspected  by  historians.  In  consequence,  their  in- 
terpretation of  the  history  of  Judaea  has  been  imperfect,  or  even  en- 
tirely false. 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  393 

looked.  This  motive  operates  partly  in  the  conscious- 
ness, partly  in  the  subconsciousness,  of  the  actors.  In 
the  latter  case  its  workings  are  hidden  from  themselves, 
and  even  in  the  former  they  are  inaccessible  to  the  his- 
torian. When  the  historian  undertakes  to  lay  bare  the 
spiritual  foundations  of  events,  he  abandons  the  firm 
ground  of  reality,  and  soars  into  the  airy  regions  of  im- 
agination. Instead  of  recording  and  expounding,  he 
invents,  and  pretends  that  his  subjective  interpretation, 
guess-work,  and  invention  are  the  results  of  actual  re- 
search. And  yet  the  origin,  nature,  and  reciprocal  influ- 
ence of  the  elements  of  tradition  on  the  one  hand,  and 
experience  on  the  other,  that  compose  the  conscious  and 
subconscious  life,  remain  outside  his  ken,  although  to 
understand  human  action  is  impossible  without  such 
knowledge.  But  if,  these  objections  apart,  the  his- 
torian's account  is  allowed  to  be  always  reliable,  truth- 
ful, and  complete ;  if  we  admit  that  he  does  give  a  cor- 
rect description  of  the  men  and  actions  concerned,  does 
estimate  correctly  the  share  borne  by  each  individual  in 
any  event,  and  does  elucidate  fully  the  motives  and  inten- 
tions of  his  action,  even  so  his  work,  after  all  these 
admissions  have  been  made,  remains  vain  and  negligible, 
if  considered  as  a  contribution  to  knowledge.  The  pic- 
ture it  presents  displays  the  external  form,  but  not  the 
inner  organs  of  humanity.  Its  attention  is  engrossed  by 
the  mutable  forms  of  greatness,  every  one  of  which  may 
be  exchanged,  replaced,  increased,  diminished,  or  sup- 
pressed, without  any  effect  on  the  course  of  history  as 
a  whole.  It  is  as  though  we  were  to  ask  a  scientist  to 
explain  to  us  the  chemical  constituents  and  physical  prop- 
erties of  soapy  water,  and  he,  as  the  result  of  arduous 


394     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

labour,  were  only  able  to  present  us  with  an  account 
of  the  number,  size,  form,  colour,  and  duration  of  the 
soap-bubbles  blown  by  a  child  at  play.  We  are  human, 
and  everything  human  interests  and  moves  us.  Any 
vivid  and  convincing  account  of  the  destiny  of  a  real 
human  being  rouses  our  eager  sympathy,  and  will  always 
find  grateful  readers.  But  history.,  as  the  "  biography 
of  might,"  can  teach  us  nothing  more  than  any  other 
true  account  of  an  individual  life :  it  makes  us  ac- 
quainted with  a  personality,  while  leaving  us  in  pro- 
found ignorance  of  the  fate  of  humanity  and  its  eternal 
laws.  Entertaining  literature — nothing  more — can  be 
produced  by  a  method  of  historical  writing  which  re- 
gards the  concrete  event  as  essential,  and  treats  it  ac- 
cordingly, instead  of  penetrating  through  it  to  an  under- 
standing of  life  of  the  species  as  a  whole.  When  history 
ceases  to  recount,  and  begins  to  count — that  is  to  say, 
when,  instead  of  lingering  over  the  visible  individual 
bearers  and  makers  of  history — the  picturesque  soap- 
bubbles,  as  it  were,  of  individual  events — it  devotes  its 
attention  to  studying  the  forms,  conditions,  and  modifica- 
tions of  the  uneventful  daily  existence  of  average 
humanity,  then,  and  not  till  then,  can  it  cease  to 
be  an  art,  a  mongrel  poetry,  and  rise  to  the  rank  of 
a  science.  But  then  it  is  no  longer  history  in  the  cus- 
tomary sense:  it  becomes  anthropology,  ethnography, 
or  sociology  reinforced  by  biology,  psychology,  and 
statistics. 

The  philosophy  of  history  at  least  claims  a  higher 
point  of  view.  It  includes  in  its  survey  the  whole  course 
of  human  development,  and  seeks  to  know  its  origin, 
course,  and  goal.     It  values  concrete  personalities  only 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  395 

in  so  far  as  they  seem  to  throw  light  upon  the  answer 
to  the  more  general  question.  Such,  at  least,  is  its  the- 
oretical programme.  But  we  have  seen  how  imperfectly 
it  has  hitherto  been  fulfilled.  It  is  not  in  any  spirit  of 
interrogation,  in  any  modest  desire  to  learn  what  it  can 
teach,  that  it  approaches  human  life,  but  with  the  arro- 
gant spirit  of  command,  and  opinions  already  formed. 
These  it  seeks  to  have  confirmed  by  question-begging 
inquiry  and  the  suppression  of  any  answers  that  do  not 
fit  in.  Ernst  Mach  speaks  somewhere  of  the  "  sciences 
of  deceit,  which  have  been  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
maintaining  views  that  are  a  survival  of  the  primitive 
condition  of  mankind."  The  type  of  "  these  sciences  of 
deceit "  is  the  philosophy  of  history,  in  the  customary 
aphoristic  and  deductive  form,  in  which  it  includes  every 
vision,  every  chimera,  and  every  superstition  character- 
istic of  the  theology  and  metaphysics  of  the  day.  It 
attributes  intentions  to  the  actions  of  historical  person- 
ages which  they  never  had,  invents  an  order  of  events 
of  its  own  creation,  and  ascribes  a  goal  of  human  de- 
velopment that  has  no  existence  outside  an  imagination 
obsessed  by  anthropomorphic  ideas.  Were  it  possible 
for  the  a  priori  philosophy  of  history  to  reflect  upon 
itself,  and  realize  the  real  nature  of  the  task  before  it, 
it  would  shrink  back,  appalled  by  the  immensity  of  its 
undertaking  and  the  inadequacy  of  its  methods.  The 
impulse  in  which  it  originates  is  a  longing  to  compre- 
hend the  riddle  of  the  universe.  Man  seeks  to  know  the 
significance  of  the  universe  and  of  his  part  in  it — why 
he  was  born,  why  he  suffers;  why  he  must  die;  why  he 
has  been  endowed  with  the  awful  privilege  of  reason, 
what  will  become  of  the  heavenly  spark  housed  in  his 


396     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

perishing  earthly  body,  why,  in  the  brief  span  of  hi* 
life  upon  earth,  he  aspires  and  struggles,  thinks  and 
inquires,  loves,  longs,  and  suffers.  And,  because  his 
humanity  is  clipped  in  the  limits  of  human  existence,  he 
naturally  exaggerates  the  importance  of  his  species  in 
the  universe.  He  thinks  anthropomorphically,  and  fol- 
lows his  will-o'-the-wisp,  without  any  gleam  of  scientific 
mistrust,  to  the  conviction  that  the  meaning  of  the  uni- 
verse must  be  revealed  through  humanity,  if  not  through 
any  individual  human  being.  He  believes  that  the 
species  as  a  whole  has  a  consciousness  of  its  vocation  that 
transcends  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  man,  and 
that  it  is  only  necessary  to  take  a  sufficiently  wide  and 
penetrating  survey  of  the  life  of  the  species  to  recognize 
its  working  and  the  end  towards  which  it  strives,  and  to 
be  enlightened  as  to  the  nature  of  that  task  in  which 
the  individual  is  engaged  without  being  aware  of  it. 
But  the  answer  given  by  human  history  to  such  ques- 
tions of  eternity  is  the  same  as  that  given  by  the  history 
of  every  other  species.  We  can  get  as  near  or  nearer 
to  a  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  universe  by  looking  up 
to  the  starry  heaven  or  down  the  shaft  of  a  coal-mine 
as  by  the  most  impassioned  study  of  archives  and 
libraries.  The  search  for  a  purpose  in  human  events, 
and  in  the  development  of  peoples  and  States,  involves 
the  silent  assumption  that  history  has  such  a  purpose. 
It  can  only  have  a  purpose  if  someone  outside  of  human- 
ity, independently  of  the  consciousness  and  open  will, 
has  set  that  purpose  before  it,  and  ceaselessly  urges 
them  to  struggle  towards  it.  This  someone  can  only 
be  a  Being  endowed  with  intelligence  and  will,  omnipo- 
tent and  eternal,  and  a  Being  with  such  attributes  is  the 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  397 

God  of  the  theologians.  Whenever  the  philosophy  of 
history  includes  a  transcendental  theology,  it  is  a  form 
of  religion,  and  arrives  by  a  superfluous  historical  circuit 
at  the  point  of  view  of  the  catechism.  Faith  in  God 
and  His  dominion  on  the  earth  does  not  require  the 
support  of  history  to  strengthen  its  conviction  of  the 
being  and  attributes  of  God,  and  the  stability  of  a  world- 
order  that  came  from  God  and  returns  to  Him.  And 
nothing  in  the  course  of  history  can  create  faith  in  God 
where  it  is  absent.  If  the  deductive  philosophy  of  his- 
tory is  not  theology,  it  has  no  meaning;  if  it  is,  it  is 
superfluous. 

"When  history  is  approached  without  preconceived 
opinions,  in  the  sole  desire  to  know;  when  its  course  is 
regarded  with  scientific  detachment,  and  no  theological 
assumptions  are  introduced,  the  resulting  views  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  teachings  of  philosophy 
of  history  in  its  customary  form. 

No  single  historical  event,  when  truthfully  presented 
without  any  intentional  interpolations,  permits  the 
assumption  of  a  purpose  towards  which  the  efforts  of 
historical  actors  are  ignorantly  directed,  and  which,  re- 
maining unsuspected  by  their  short-sighted  simplicity,  is 
first  revealed  to  an  astonished  posterity.  Nothing  in  his- 
tory justifies  the  assertion  that  any  higher  intelligence 
is  pursuing  plans  in  whose  accomplishment  unsuspecting 
humanity  is  a  passive  instrument.  Nowhere  is  there 
revealed  any  transcendent  Finality.  On  the  contrary, 
every  act  carried  through  by  men  can  be  referred  to  a 
cause  that  is,  as  a  rule,  known,  or,  if  unconscious,  can 
easily  be  discovered.  Causality,  not  teleology,  is  the 
law  of  history;  a  highly  complex  causality,  certainly, 


398     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

which  brings  to  bear  upon  every  man,  at  every  moment 
of  his  life,  the  whole  past  and  present  of  our  species :  the 
present  by  the  necessities  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
and  by  the  relations  between  stronger  and  weaker, 
fellow-workers  and  competitors;  the  past  by  means  of 
the  institutions  it  has  created,  inherited  modes  of 
thought,  standards  of  value,  and  forms  of  feeling.  If 
the  causes  of  all  human  action  be  reduced  to  their  sim- 
plest terms,  it  would  finally  appear  that  the  will  of  any 
individual  is  determined  solely  by  the  needs  that  appear 
in  the  consciousness  as  feelings  of  pain.  As  long  as 
he  lives  man  seeks  to  escape  pain,  and  all  his  efforts  are 
directed  to  this  one  purpose.  This  highly  generalized 
psychological  formula  is  unconditionally  valid  in  every 
instance,  even  where  a  man  appears  to  do  something 
that,  instead  of  removing  or  alleviating  a  pain,  actually 
causes  him  pain  in  the  first  instance.  In  such  cases  he 
takes  one  pain  to  avoid  another,  that  seems  to  him 
more  severe,  however  it  may  be  estimated  by  the  out- 
sider, who  is  exempt  from  it.  A  slave  will  work  for 
his  master  till  he  drops  down  with  fatigue,  without  any 
hope  of  reward  or  freedom,  because  the  idea  of  the 
punishment  for  disobedience — stripes,  mutilation,  or 
even  death — is  more  painful  to  him  than  the  toil  of 
work,  by  which  he  escapes  from  it.  The  peaceful  man 
who  loves  his  wife  will  go  to  war  and  run  into  the  most 
deadly  peril,  because  disobedience  to  the  command  of 
the  State,  failure  to  answer  the  call  of  patriotism  and 
honour,  are  to  him  evils  more  dreadful  than  death.  The 
habit  of  submission  to  traditional  notions  of  duty  and 
virtue  has  been  made,  by  education,  so  much  a.  part  of 
the  intellectual  mechanism  of  the  civilized  man,  and 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  399 

controls  his  thoughts  and  feelings  so  completely,  that 
any  deviation  from  it  would  cause  him  such  unendura- 
ble pain  that  wounds  and  death  would  seem  a  lesser 
evil  in  comparison.  A  mere  desire  for  pleasure  is  not 
the  cause  of  action  unless  it  be  so  violent  as  to  be  felt 
as  a  tormenting  restlessness,  excitement,  and  longing — 
that  is,  as  a  sharp  feeling  of  pain.  It  cannot  even  be 
said  that  man  is  so  constituted  organically  that  he  is 
only  stirred  to  action  by  the  desire  for  sugar  or  the 
fear  of  the  whip.  Really,  the  whip  is  the  sole  stimulus  ; 
the  sugar  only  becomes  one  when  it  stirs  a  desire  that 
is  so  strong  that  it  acts  as  a  whip.  Only  on  such  an 
interpretation  can  either  Hedonism  or  Eudsemonism 
claim  to  afford  an  accurate  explanation  of  human  action. 
Man  is  not  always  seeking  the  blue  bird  of  happiness. 
He  is  always  fleeing  from  pain.  He  does  not  set  his 
footsteps  towards  a  visionary  Jerusalem — the  fulfilment 
of  the  joy  and  happiness  he  desires  so  ardently.  He 
flees  ever  from  haunts  of  pain. 

Every  historical  event,  without  any  exception,  can  be 
referred  to  a  need — that  is,  in  the  last  resort,  to  a  feel- 
ing of  pain.  The  purpose  of  these  feelings  of  discom- 
fort is  the  preservation  of  life,  and  they  are  incompre- 
hensible without  the  assumption  of  a  life  force,  a  desire, 
inherent  in  every  living  thing,  to  maintain  itself  against 
destruction  and  annihilation.  Only  the  assumption  of 
a  life  force  explains  why  the  living  creature  marks  with 
pain  every  perception  of  a  state  that  could  harm  or 
endanger  it,  and  is  thereby  impelled  to  exert  himself  to 
escape  it.  It  is  not  quite  correct  to  say  that  harms  are 
marked  by  pain,  for  that  gives  the  appearance  of  a 
duality,  a  separation  of  the  perception  and  the  pain;  a 


400     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

relation  as  between  cause  and  effect,  the  thing  accom- 
panied and  the  accompaniment.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  perception  of  harm  and  the  pain  are  identical.  They 
are  a  single  organic  state.  Pain  is  the  subjective  side 
of  harm.  Harm  is  not  the  cause  of  pain :  it  is  pain.  It 
appears  as  pain  in  the  consciousness,  and  operates  in  it 
to  cause  acts  of  will  directed  to  protection;  outside  of 
it  to  cause  reflex  action.  And  as  everything  harmful  to 
life  appears  in  the  consciousness  as  pain  itself,  so  the 
unharmed  movement  of  life  appears  in  the  conscious- 
ness as  pleasure  in  itself,  in  reality  as  the  only  pleasure 
of  which  man  is  capable,  and  which  he  knows — a  pain 
that  may  vary  in  intensity  but  not  in  nature.  So  we 
arrive  at  the  knowledge  that  all  the  actions  of  men, 
whether  individually  or  in  groups,  classes,  and  nations, 
are  defensive  of  pleasure — that  is,  of  life — and  pro- 
tective against  pain — that  is,  dangers  and  harms  to  life 
— and  that  the  whole  course  of  history  is  the  expression 
of  one  underlying  fact — the  will  of  man  and  of  man- 
kind to  live  and  to  make  every  exertion  to  maintain  life 
in  the  midst  of  hostile  nature.  This  does  not  distin- 
guish man  from  other  living  things — the  lowest  and 
the  highest,  the  vegetable  and  the  animal.  Every  organ- 
ism desires  to  last,  and  defends  itself  against  destruc- 
tion with  all  the  strength  that  in  it  is.  The  life  force 
is  seemingly  inseparable  from  life,  and  the  whole  activity 
of  every  living  thing  is  directed  to  the  satisfaction  of 
its  necessities,  which  in  the  lowest  stage  are  tropisms, 
conditioned  by  chemical  and  physical  laws,  and,  with 
a  higher  development,  are  consciously  realized  as  needs. 
History,  rightly  seen  and  interpreted,  instead  of  sep- 
arating the  human  species  from  the  chain  of  all  other 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  401 

living  species  on  the  earth,  knits  them  all  together,  and 
proves  in  its  own  way  the  unity  of  all  life. 

It  has  become  more  difficult  for  the  human  species  to 
satisfy  its  needs  than  for  any  that  lived  on  earth  before 
it,  or  lives  there  now  beside  it.  It  arose  between  two 
Ice  Ages,  at  a  time  when  our  planet  offered  from  pole 
to  pole  the  most  favourable  conditions  of  existence  for 
a  race  of  beings  who  lived  on  plants,  were  almost  or 
quite  hairless,  needed  the  sun  and  disliked  the  wet,  and 
followed  a  happy  course  of  development  in  its  tropical 
or  subtropical  paradises,  until  a  subsequent  Ice  Age 
came  upon  it — not  upon  it  alone,  but  upon  all  then  living 
things.  Many  animal  and  plant  species  perished;  others 
withdrew  to  a  narrow  tropical  zone,  and  remained  there, 
forfeiting  their  lives  if  they  left  their  prison.  Others 
struggled  against  the  new  hostility  of  nature,  and 
adapted  themselves  to  its  harsh  conditions.  Of  these 
was  the  human  race.  Instead  of  fading  away  before 
the  frozen  breath  of  the  murderous  climate  of  the  Pole, 
or  fleeing  for  refuge  to  a  tropical  region  to  which  no 
cold  could  penetrate,  it  adapted  itself  to  altered  circum- 
stances— not,  like  the  other  dwellers  on  the  earth,  by 
organic  changes,  but  by  the  capacity  of  its  mind  to  invent 
artificial  arrangements,  which  procured  for  it  those  con- 
ditions of  existence  no  longer  provided  by  nature. 

This  artificial  adaptation  by  means  of  discoveries  has 
never  ceased.  The  longer  it  lasts,  the  more  energetic 
and  effective  does  it  become.  It  is  the  real  content  of 
human  history,  not  visible  on  the  surface,  but  occupying 
the  depths.  It  has  always  been  carried  on  according 
to  the  law  of  least  effort,  and  has  therefore  always 
moved  along  the  line  of  least  resistance.    This  method 


402     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

produced  one  peculiar  result.  The  stronger  individuals 
caused  the  weaker  to  provide  them  with  the  favourable 
conditions  of  existence  indispensable  to  them.  The  re- 
sistance of  their  fellows  was  less  in  proportion  than  the 
resistance  of  nature.  Less  effort  was  involved  in  rob- 
bing men  of  the  fruits  of  their  labour  than  in  wresting 
from  nature  warmth,  dryness,  nourishment,  and  com- 
fortable rest.  Parasitism  proved  by  experience  to  be  the 
easiest  form  of  adaptation.  As  far  back  as  historical 
tradition  goes  the  strong  are  found  directing  their  efforts 
in  this  manner.  This  parasitism  on  the  part  of  the 
strong  is  the  object — obvious  or  occult,  direct  or  indirect 
— of  almost  all  the  institutions  that  have  arisen  in  the 
course  of  centuries,  and  represent  the  framework,  even 
the  substance,  of  civilization.  Superior  individuals 
always  devoted  their  best  efforts  to  the  direct  exploita- 
tion of  those  less  highly  gifted  of  the  average  people, 
and  also  to  their  education  in  habits  of  thought  and 
feeling  which  would  lead  them  not  only  to  see  no 
violence  or  injustice  in  the  parasitism  to  which  they 
were  subjected,  but  even  to  feel  themselves  so  distin- 
guished by  it  that  they  worked  with  heart  and  soul  for 
those  that  exploited  them,  and  felt  a  moral  glow,  a  sense 
of  pride,  in  being  permitted  to  sacrifice  themselves.  It 
was  with  positive  pleasure  that  they  placed  all  their 
capacities  at  the  service  of  these  plunderers,  and  com- 
peted with  one  another  to  make  inventions  and  discov- 
eries with  a  view  to  their  advantage.  Thus,  by  the 
exercise  of  their  own  brains,  they  made  their  exploita- 
tion easier,  less  dangerous,  more  effective  and  pro- 
ductive. The  only  return,  at  first  hoped  and  longed 
for,  then  besought,  and  finally  demanded,  by  the  aver- 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  403 

age  from  the  super  man  was  to  be  left  undisturbed  in 
his  habits,  and  not  to  be  expected  to  form  any  per- 
sonal judgments  or  resolutions,  any  new  adaptations, 
such  as  were  beyond  his  power.  He  asked  for 
the  maintenance  of  order  about  him,  and  protection 
for  his  enjoyment  of  the  few  rights  left  him  by  the 
State. 

Externally,  then,  history  is  a  melodrama  on  the  theme 
of  parasitism,  characterized  by  scenes  that  are  exciting 
or  dull,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  many  a  sudden  stage- 
trick.  A  strong  man,  called  a  hero  by  the  weak,  who 
slavishly  admire  him,  snatches  dominion  over  some  or 
many — perhaps  over  a  whole  nation  or  nations.  He  or 
his  successors  extend  this  power  by  means  of  raids  into 
foreign  territory  and  by  conquests,  and  endeavour  by 
the  splendour  of  the  court  and  occasional  wars  to  main- 
tain their  position  by  rousing  fear  and  awe.  The  war- 
riors and  servants  of  the  ruler  form  a  class  apart,  which 
endeavours,  in  its  turn,  to  secure  the  privilege  of  ex- 
ploiting the  rest  of  the  people.  If  this  class  presses  its 
claims  too  far,  or  if  any  section  of  the  exploited  popu- 
lation develops  a  strong  economic  position,  then,  when 
this  latter  section  becomes  conscious  of  its  strength,  it 
will  endeavour  to  break  the  power  of  the  others,  to  cast 
them  down  from  their  privileged  position,  and  occupy  it 
in  their  stead,  unless  they  are  clever  enough  to  take  into 
their  own  ranks  those  whose  attack  they  can  no  longer 
resist.  In  this  incessant  warfare  between  individuals 
for  the  supreme  power,  between  classes  for  internal 
domination,  and  between  nations  for  the  possession  of 
the  earth  and  its  fruits,  the  State,  Government,  trade, 
industry,  and  law  take  their  rise  and  perfect  themselves, 


404     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

each  the  outcome  of  the  other,  each  conditioned  by  the 
other,  and  all  serving  but  as  weapons  in  the  warfare. 
But  while  wars  and  treaties,  revolution  and  reaction, 
party  strife,  crisis,  and  compromise,  are  the  character- 
istic expression  of  the  efforts  made  by  the  parasitic  self- 
ishness of  individuals  and  communities  to  attain  the  most 
effective  possible  form  of  exploitation,  and  of  the  re- 
sistance offered  by  those  who  are  sacrificed  to  them, 
the  constant  changes  they  effect  are  changes  on  the  sur- 
face. Beneath  the  turbulent  waves  of  the  internal  and 
external  politics  of  States,  the  laborious  task  of  adapta- 
tion is  always  going  on,  quietly  and  regularly,  by  means 
of  a  more  and  more  penetrating  knowledge  of  nature, 
which  is  of  advantage  to  the  species  as  a  whole,  includ- 
ing the  average  man,  and  also  those  who  are  handi- 
capped by  nature.  In  this  it  is  unlike  the  easy  adapta- 
tion carried  out  by  the  strong,  for  the  advantage  of 
a  select  few  specially  favoured  organisms,  by  means  of 
parasitism.  The  discoveries  of  keen  observers  and  capa- 
ble interpreters  permit  a  more  and  more  penetrating 
insight  into  the  operations,  if  not  into  the  nature,  of 
the  forces  of  the  universe.  Able  or  intelligent  inventors 
incorporate  each  new  piece  of  knowledge  in  a  form  in 
which  it  can  be  of  use  in  satisfying  the  needs  of  which 
humanity,  or  a  portion  of  it,  has  become  conscious. 
Better  understanding  of  nature  gradually  educates  the 
human  mind,  teaches  it  to  distinguish  error  from  truth, 
to  think  logically,  to  form  judgments  by  careful  com- 
bination of  cause  and  effect,  strengthens  the  attention, 
develops  the  sense  of  reality,  and  limits  man's  tendency 
to  prefer  words  to  views  and  ideas  of  his  own.  When 
the  reason  is  thus  educated  by  a  knowledge  of  nature, 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  405 

the  power  of  symbols  and  phrases  over  it  is  at  an  end. 
Men  lose  their  superstitious  belief  in  portentous  formulae 
and  signs;  they  test  the  accuracy  of  assertions  made 
to  them,  and  estimate  threats  by  the  degree  to  which 
they  are  capable  of  being  realized.  All  this  makes  their 
exploitation  more  difficult.  It  can  no  longer  be  accom- 
plished by  force,  since  the  average  people,  when  com- 
bined, are  fully  competent  to  forecast  and  meet  strength 
by  strength.  It  cannot  be  accomplished  by  craft,  since 
the  average  people  are  capable  of  seeing  through  it. 
Parasitism,  becoming  more  troublesome  and  less  pro- 
ductive with  every  advance  in  the  enlightenment  of  the 
crowd,  ceases  to  offer  to  the  select  few  the  easiest  method 
of  adaptation.  Then  the  law  of  least  effort  determines 
them  to  make  the  same  efforts  as  the  average  persons 
do  in  order  to  obtain  the  satisfaction  of  their  needs, 
whether  from  nature  or  by  exchange  with  their  fellows 
— an  exchange  more  profitable  in  their  case,  thanks  to 
their  superiority.  This  development  of  civilization  is 
paralleled  by  the  development  of  morality.  Moral  con- 
ceptions undergo  transformation  with  the  change  in  the 
relation  between  the  select  few  and  the  average  many, 
with  the  rising  self-respect  of  the  ordinary  man  who  does 
not  aspire  to  domination,  and  with  the  increased  value 
assigned  to  personality,  even  in  the  case  of  him  not 
specially  endowed.  The  ethics  of  parasitism,  whose 
standard  of  value,  as  applied  to  thought  and  actions,  is 
their  tendency  to  be  beneficial  or  detrimental  to  those 
engaged  in  exploitation,  to  the  men  of  overwhelming 
force,  to  the  privileged  class,  to  the  State,  are  gradually 
ousted,  and  their  place  taken  by  the  ethics  of  sovereign 
personality,  for  which  good  is  that  which  assists  the  con- 


4o6     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

quest  of  nature  by  man,  and  evil  that  which  assists  the 
conquest  of  man  by  man. 

Parasitism  is  not  the  sole  result  of  the  law  of  least 
effort  in  the  struggle  for  existence  in  the  midst  of  hostile 
nature:  it  has  also  produced  illusion.  No  living  form 
can  preserve  itself  unless  it  is  at  home  in  nature,  and 
learns  to  avoid  what  is  harmful,  and  discover  what  is 
advantageous  to  it  there.  The  development  and  dif- 
ferentiation of  its  organs  is  relative  to  this  capacity.  In 
proportion  as  its  needs  are  manifold  and  complex,  it 
must  have  a  delicate  and  many-sided  faculty  of  orienta- 
tion. In  men,  as  in  all  other  animals,  the  seat  of  this 
faculty  is  the  nervous  system,  with  the  brain  as  its 
centre.  The  chemistry  of  the  body  and  its  movements, 
and,  to  a  large  extent,  its  development,  circulation,  and 
nutrition,  are  also  controlled  by  this  supremely  impor- 
tant organ,  whose  highest  function — the  psychic — has 
arisen  and  been  developed  throughout  by  the  necessity 
of  self-preservation.  Compulsory  adaptation  to  nature 
strengthened  memory,  the  primitive  characteristic  of 
living  matter,  fixed  the  attention;  created  and  perpetu- 
ated the  mechanism  of  the  association  of  ideas;  and 
imposed  the  law  of  causality  on  thought.  The  functions 
of  attention,  the  association  of  ideas  and  causal  think- 
ing, are  obviously  determined  by  one  and  the  same  ob- 
ject: to  translate  the  sense  impressions,  when  perceived, 
into  ideas  and  judgments  in  such  a  manner  that  the  con- 
sciousness should  receive  with  all  possible  speed  and 
the  least  possible  exertion  as  accurate  a  picture  as  possi- 
ble of  its  environment,  should  form  as  correct  as  possible 
a  concept  of  the  connection  of  phenomena,  and  foresee 
with  the  greatest  possible  certainty  the  changes,  near 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  407 

and  remote,  likely  to  occur  and  prove  in  any  way  impor- 
tant to  the  organism;  so  that,  estimating  their  value, 
both  qualitative  and  quantitative,  it  may  focus  the  organ- 
ism in  the  most  favourable  possible  way.  To  form  a 
picture  of  the  universe,  as  closely  in  touch  with  reality 
as  the  formation  and  functioning  of  the  sense  and  per- 
ceptive organs  permit,  is  a  psychic  task  of  the  most 
laborious  description:  knowledge  is  only  acquired  by 
arduous  effort.  It  is  incomparably  less  difficult  to  give 
full  rein  to  the  imagination,  to  allow  the  thoughts  to 
wander  at  will,  as  free  and  light  as  air,  to  indulge  in 
reveries  and  day-dreams,  than  to  sustain  and  fix  the 
attention,  form  ideas  from  pure  perception,  without  any 
subjective  interpolation  whatsoever;  gather  up  from  the 
memory  the  perceptions  already  formed  into  ideas,  and 
to  build  up  judgments  from  them ;  finally  to  test  with  due 
severity  the  causal  connection  and  mutual  interdepend- 
ence of  the  terms  of  every  conclusion.  The  associations 
that  are  frequent  and  habitual  organize  themselves,  and 
summon  each  other  automatically  into  the  conscious- 
ness. It  is  filled  with  a  whirling  crowd  of  ideas  that  are 
drawn  from  the  memory  by  the  playful  mechanism  of 
the  organized  associations,  instead  of  being  composed 
of  immediate  perceptions  which  have  been  tested.  These 
ideas,  then,  group  and  combine  kaleidoscopically.  They 
dart  like  will-o'-the-wisps  through  the  consciousness,  and 
disappear  again  into  obscurity.  And  all  this  takes  place 
without  the  will  at  any  moment  intervening  to  control 
the  vanishing  dance,  or  to  introduce  any  order  into  it, 
and  without  the  thinking  Ego  being  conscious  of  any 
sort  of  effort.  Out  of  these  nebulous  elements,  which 
never  develop  to  rational  thoughts,  the  dominant  erno- 


408     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

tion  of  the  moment  creates  subjective  images  like  the 
figures  of  Chladni  formed  by  the  vibrations  that  act 
upon  thin  plates  of  glass — images  whose  origin  prevents 
them  from  corresponding  in  any  way  to  reality.  Yet 
at  the  beginning  of  civilization,  and  even  to-day  in  many 
cases,  men  were  satisfied  to  use  their  brains  in  this  way, 
because  it  required  so  much  less  effort  than  the  way  to 
knowledge.  The  automatic  play  of  association  gave 
them  a  view  of  the  world  that,  though  false  in  every 
feature,  gave  them  pleasure  because  it  harmonized  with 
their  feelings  and  inclinations.  "  Side  by  side  with  the 
real  world,"  said  Goethe,  "there  is  a  world  of  illusion 
more  powerful  than  it  is,  and  in  it  dwell  the  majority 
of  men."  Men  built  up  this  world  of  illusion  for  them- 
selves first  by  means  of  incomplete,  inattentive  observa- 
tion, which  was  satisfied  with  the  most  casual  sense  im- 
pressions, and  falsified  even  them  by  arbitrary  inter- 
polations and  preposterous  interpretations;  then  by  pre- 
sentment or  intuition,  which  is  no  more  than  a  formless 
muddle  of  vague  recollections,  whose  origin  in  the  senses 
is  forgotten;  by  the  use  of  analogy  in  identifying  things 
which  are  essentially  different  because  of  certain  partial 
resemblances;  and  by  imagination,  which,  working  by 
means  of  automatic  associationism>  has  emancipated 
itself  almost  completely  from  the  law  of  causality. 

In  this  world  of  illusion  men  were  as  comfortable  as 
in  the  warm  huts  inside  which  the  cold,  storm,  and  rain 
without  went  unobserved.  There  everything  had  a 
rational  meaning.  There  they  found  the  answer  to  all 
the  questions  suggested  by  fear  or  curiosity — an  assuage- 
ment for  all  trouble  and  unrest,  a  comfort  for  every 
sorrow,   a  solution  to  every  riddle.     Sickness?     The 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  409 

tormenting  of  an  invisible,  sometimes  of  a  visible,  enemy, 
who  only  had  to  be  driven  or  cajoled  away,  and  one 
would  be  well.  Death  ?  A  mere  appearance,  the  reality 
being  eternal  life  in  unknown  but,  for  the  good  and 
favoured,  most  glorious  regions.  The  world  ?  A  round 
plate  resting  upon  the  sea,  covered  with  a  bell-glass  of 
blue  crystal.  Its  origin?  its  end?  Great  artists,  the 
Gods,  have  created  it,  rule  over  it,  and  will  one  day 
destroy  it.  Happiness?  A  gift  that  can  be  obtained 
from  these  Gods,  if  one  can  win  or  purchase  their 
favour  by  submissive  prayer  and  sacrifices.  These  exam- 
ples suffice.  For  an  exhaustive  description  of  the  world 
of  illusion  with  which  men  have  surrounded  themselves, 
one  would  have  to  take  in  the  whole  range  of  mythol- 
ogy, all  fabulous  cosmogonies,  theology,  and  also  all 
metaphysical  systems. 

In  the  long-run,  however,  Illusionism  was  no  more 
successful  as  a  means  of  adaptation  than  Parasitism. 
The  cold  blast  of  reality  pierced  the  world  of  illusion, 
and  laid  waste  its  fair  order.  Magic  formulae,  incanta- 
tions, and  the  burning  of  witches  and  wizards,  did  not 
heal  disease.  Too  often  prayer  and  sacrifice  failed  to 
avert  evil  from  individuals  and  communities.  Amulets 
did  not  avail  in  battle  to  avert  the  deadly  stroke.  "  Sator 
areto  tenet  opera  rotas  "  did  not  succeed  in  extinguish- 
ing conflagrations.  No  incantations  were  of  any  use 
against  plague  and  famine.  The  nullity  of  all  the  meth- 
ods of  illusion  inexorably  compelled  men  to  seek  else- 
where. Its  explanations  had  to  be  abandoned  in  the 
face  of  innumerable  phenomena  that  could  not  be  over- 
looked. In  fear  and  trembling,  at  first  isolated  individ- 
uals, then  more  and  more,  were  compelled  by  their  sense 


4io     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

of  reality  to  come  out  of  their  cherished  world  of  illu- 
sion, and  feel  their  way  carefully,  slowly,  step  by  step, 
into  the  real  world.  It  was  trackless  and  incompre- 
hensible, with  sharp  corners  everywhere  that  bruised  the 
feet,  blocks  and  crevasses  over  which  they  fell.  But 
gradually  they  began  to  learn  their  way  about,  and,  so 
soon  as  some  sort  of  path  was  made,  the  explorers  had 
fairly  solid  ground  under  their  feet.  And  those  who 
studied  the  real  world  arrived  at  positive  results,  such 
as  the  world  of  illusion  never  had,  and  never  could 
have  afforded.  The  vast  majority  continued  to  be 
wrapped  up  in  the  illusions  of  their  own  weaving  that 
they  held  for  the  real  world.  Nothing  shielded  them 
from  the  danger  of  losing  all  touch  with  the  world  of 
reality,  and  being  exposed  defenceless  to  the  injustice 
of  nature,  like  the  dreamers  and  sleepers  on  whom  the 
enemy  descends  in  the  night,  except  the  incessant  watch- 
fulness of  the  sentries  who  undertook  to  guard  and  to 
defend  them.  These  were  the  small  minority,  those 
who  busied  themselves  with  observation,  research,  re- 
flection, and  experiment.  To  them  the  world  owes  its 
discoveries,  its  inventions,  and  its  knowledge.  Thanks 
to  the  devoted  labours  of  this  minority,  the  great  ma- 
jority could  safely  prolong  their  pleasant  sojourn  in 
the  land  of  illusion,  though  they  are  more  and  more 
effectually  being  prevented  from  acting  under  the  sway 
of  their  illusions,  and  repeating,  on  a  larger  scale,  such 
aberrations  as  the  Crusades,  the  flagellation  movement, 
the  persecution  of  heretics,  and  burning  of  witches,  or 
the  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries. 

But  even  the  apostle  of  reality  has  not  wholly  re- 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  411 

nounced  his  illusions.  Even  the  scientist,  accustomed  to 
observe  most  carefully  and  test  most  severely  the  con- 
tents of  his  consciousness — even  he  feels  an  atavistic 
home-sickness  for  the  world  of  illusion,  and  is  drawn 
towards  it  by  irresistible  longing.  But  there  is  this  dif- 
ference between  him  and  the  man  who  has  never  awak- 
ened to  his  illusions :  he  knows  the  play  of  his  imagina- 
tion for  what  it  is,  even  while  he  delights  in  it,  and  never 
for  a  moment  confuses  it  with  real  ideas  and  judgments. 
The  world  of  illusion,  that  the  undeveloped  mind  re- 
gards as  the  whole  world,  is  restricted  by  the  critical 
thinker  to  the  sphere  of  art,  which  is  to  him  a  joy  and 
a  "luxury  with  which  he  cannot  dispense.  In  art  he  recov- 
ers that  free  play  of  the  imagination  that,  until  recent 
times,  formed  the  sole  activity  of  the  human  brain. 
Once  more,  untrammelled  by  the  harsh  negations  of 
reality,  he  is  master  of  a  world  which  he  can  build  up, 
and  furnish  with  his  own  ideas,  peopling  it  with  the 
embodiments  of  his  longing  for  beauty,  youth,  strength, 
and  every  kind  of  perfection,  banishing  from  it  every- 
thing hateful  and  vulgar,  everything  evil,  repulsive,  or 
repellent,  all  pain  and  all  sorrow,  and  committing  its 
government  to  justice,  gentleness,  and  love.  Art  is  gov- 
erned by  man's  inclinations  and  impulses,  which  find 
there  the  unbounded  satisfaction  denied  them  in  reality. 
There  man  is  not  obliged  to  adapt  himself  with  pain  and 
trouble  to  nature;  instead,  nature — a  nature  of  his  own 
invention — adapts  itself  to  all  his  needs  and  whims,  and 
leaves  no  one  of  his  wishes  unfulfilled.  The  matter-of- 
fact  necessity  of  adapting  himself  to  his  environment 
has  compelled  man  to  raise  his  thought  to  knowledge 
by  submitting  it  to  stern  discipline,  and  to  renounce  the 


4i2     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

pleasures  of  illusion,  which,  though  facile  and  flatter- 
ing, are  sterile.  In  art  he  seeks  his  revenge  on  reality. 
An  answer  to  the  questions  of  eternity  has  been  hoped 
for  from  history.  In  vain:  it  contains  none.  The 
moving  picture  of  human  life,  present  as  well  as  past, 
holds  up  to  us  the  same  inexplicable  facts  as  does  the 
universe  itself.  These  facts  are  the  very  existence  of 
the  world,  the  phenomenon  of  life  and  consciousness. 
They  are  given:  we  must  accept  and  make  the  best  of 
them,  whether  we  comprehend  them,  whether  we  give 
a  rational  explanation  of  them  or  no.  We  see  that  the 
world  exists;  that  at  a  given  moment  in  the  world  our 
planet  arose,  and  became  the  stage  of  the  life-process; 
that  in  the  course  of  the  development  of  life  upon  earth 
a  being  appeared  with  a  relatively  larger  brain  than  any 
hitherto  known,  man;  that  the  human  species  has  the 
desire  and  the  capacity  to  maintain  itself  under  very 
unfavourable  circumstances.  So  much  we  see.  But 
history  can  no  more  explain  it  than  chemistry  or 
astronomy.  How  was  consciousness  all  at  once  ignited 
by  the  combination  of  matter,  and  how  did  it  develop 
itself  steadily  to  knowledge?  How  are  the  influences 
of  nature  on  living  matter — i.e.,  energy,  movement, 
oscillation — translated  into  idea?  Why  has  man  and 
no  other  living  species  on  the  earth  attained  to  intel- 
lectual development?  To  what  purpose  is  this  long 
series  of  birth  and  death,  the  vast  effort  involved  in 
the  attainment  of  knowledge,  ceaseless  struggles  and 
sorrows,  if  annihilation,  the  disappearance  without  a 
trace  of  humanity,  and  perhaps  of  the  earth  itself,  be 
the  end  of  it  all?  It  is  vain  to  ponder  the  annals  of 
mankind,  and  summon  up,  so  far  as  we  are  able,  men 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  413 

and  events  from  the  vasty  deeps  of  past  centuries.    We 
can  obtain  no  light  on  what  we  long  to  know. 

We  must  cease  to  regard  humanity  from  the  point  of 
view  of  eternity.  It  dwindles  else  before  our  eyes  to 
an  almost  invisible  speck,  without  permanence,  signifi- 
cance, or  aim,  the  contemplation  of  which  leaves  us 
utterly  humiliated,  broken,  and  dispirited.  "  Sub  specie 
seternitates  "  we  are  nought;  we  must  regard  ourselves 
"  sub  specie  saeculi "  if  the  spectacle  is  to  be  worth  the 
trouble.  It  is  hopeless  to  ask  the  purpose  of  humanity 
and  its  existence — as  hopeless  as  to  ask  the  purpose  of 
Sirius,  the  Milky  Way,  or  the  comets.  At  least  we  can 
see  some  sort  of  subjective  purpose  in  the  life  of  the 
individual:  he  lives,  and  wishes  to  live,  because  life  is 
pleasant  to  him;  he  lives,  and  will  live,  because  life 
gives  him  pleasure,  is  pleasure.  He  has  no  doubts  of 
this;  only  in  sickness  and  old  age — that  is  to  say,  when 
the  energy  of  life  is  waning — is  he  overcome  by  a  shrink- 
ing feeling  of  emptiness  and  aimlessness,  of  tadium  vita. 
So  long  as  he  is  filled  with  life  even  his  reason  accepts 
the  word  of  the  Gospel :  "  Sufficient  to  the  day  is  the 
evil  thereof."  His  happiest  hours  and  his  fairest  experi- 
ences come  to  him  through  a  world  of  illusion  of  his 
own  creation,  through  religion,  fairy-tales  and  super- 
stitions, through  art.  In  his  thirst  for  permanence,  in 
his  devouring  desire  for  a  future,  he  longs  for  a  goal 
of  aspiration  which  may  open  a  wide  prospect  before 
him,  he  creates  for  himself  an  ideal  transcending  the 
hours  of  his  earthly  pilgrimage  and  the  limits  of  his 
own  existence,  and  in  directing  himself  to  it  is  comforted 
by  a  new  idea  of  his  own  value  and  his  own  far-reaching 
significance.     But  is  there  one  out  of  all  the  ideals  to 


4H     THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY 

which  the  noblest  and  ablest  of  men  have  aspired  which 
can  stand  the  cold  examination  of  knowledge?  Only 
one — the  ideal  of  goodness  and  of  selfless  love.  To  add 
no  inevitable  touch  of  cruelty  to  the  inexorable  evils  with 
which  nature  scourges  man,  but,  within  the  limits  of  their 
strength,  to  lessen  the  sum  of  human  suffering — this  is 
the  ideal  towards  which  the  most  perfect  men  our  species 
has  known  have  aspired,  which  they  have  tried  to  real- 
ize, which  they  have  felt  to  be  noble  and  high  enough  to 
inspire  and  recompense  them.  It  is  an  ideal  that  is  still 
far  from  being  realized.  It  may  suffice  us  for  a  long 
time  to  come.  It  can  yet  make  life  worth  living  to 
many,  and  those  the  best  among  us. 

Thus,  behind  all  appearances  and  all  delusions,  we 
find  the  real  meaning  of  history  to  be  the  manifestation 
of  the  life  force  in  mankind.  This  manifestation  passes 
through  successive  forms — parasitism,  illusion,  and 
knowledge — in  an  ascending  scale  of  human  adaptation 
to  nature.  Any  other  meaning  is  not  deduced  from  his- 
tory but  introduced  into  it. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


Abraham,   patriarch,   58,  59 

Achilles,  78,   177 

Adam,  33,  58,  59 

Adler,  286 

^Eschylus,    31 

Agamemnon,    1 

Agrippina,   14 

Alba,    Duke    of,    69 

Albert   the    Great,    372 

Alcibiades,    12 

Alexander  II.  of  Russia,  281 

Alexander   the    Great,    7,    14,    51, 

202,   235 
Alfred  the   Great,   219,  296 
Ammianus  Marcellinus,  no 
Antoninus  Pius,   329 
Aristarchus,  336 
Aristotle,  6,  35,  70,  166,  288,  302, 

316 
Arphaxates,  58 
Augustine,    St.,    57,    60,    65,    no, 

168,   202 
Augustus,  219 

Bacon,    Francis,    Lord    Verulam, 

319 
Bacon,   Roger,    337 
Bagehot,    Walter,   48,   81 
Bancroft,    George,    3,    56 
Barnardo,  Dr.,  296 
Barni,   n 

Barot,    Odysse,    319 
Barth,   Dr.   Paul,   91,   102 
Baudrillart,    Henri,    48 
Beaumarchais,   40 
Becker,   129 

Bede,  the   Venerable,  63,  220 
Benedetti,    Count,    4 
Bernard,    Claude,    103,    325 
Bias,  175 
Biedenknapp,   379 


Bismarck,    25,    127,    200 

Blanc,   Louis,   3,   n,   109 

Bodin,   Jean,  48,   80 

Boisrobert,  338 

Booth,   "  General,"   296 

Boscowitch,    Father,   260 

Bossuet,  63,  65,  71,  183 

Boswell,    14 

Brown,  John,  295 

Bruno,    Giordano,    240 

Brutus,  11 

Buchez,    20 

Buchmann,   200 

Buckle,    Henry    Thomas,    76,    83, 

321 
Buddha,  295 
Bunsen,    Chr.    Karl    Josias    von, 

56 
Bunsen,   G.  W.,  231,   366 


Cade,   Jack,  291 

Cadmus,    127 

Caesar,  Julius,   n,   51 

Camp,    Maxime    du,    4 

Cario,  16 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  13,  88,  126,  357 

Carnegie,    178 

Carnot,   213 

Castro,    333 

Cavour,   Count,   25 

Chamisso,    A.    von,    129 

Charlemagne,  281 

Charles  XII.  of   Sweden,   280 

Chateaubriand,  40 

Christ,   58 

Cicero,    32,    no,    174,    316 

Cleon,  309 

Cleopatra,   4,   14 

Cluverius,   16 

Columbus,  51 


415 


4i6 


INDEX 


Comte,  Auguste,  71,  83,  108,  III, 

179,  214,   320 
Condorcet,  20,  320 
Copernicus,   93 
Cousin,   O.,   252 
Cromwell,    Oliver,    291 
Crookes,    Sir  W.,   368 
Curie,  274,  368 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,   337 

Daedalus,    372 

Daniel,  the  prophet,  63 

Dante,    341 

Darwin,  94 

David,  King,   59 

De  la  Motte  Fouque,   129 

Democritus,    316 

Descartes,   319 

Diderot,   320 

Diogenes    Laertius,    175 

Disraeli,   Benjamin,   294 

Doppler,  366 

Dreyfus,   Alfred,   175 

Dugas,   L.,   175 

Dunant,   283,   296 

Durckheim,   360 

Ekkehard,  63 
Elijah,   the   prophet,   337 
Empedocles,    70,    316 
Engels,   F.,   202 
Erhardt,  Ferdinand,  1 
Ezekiel,  the  prophet,  no 

Fawkes,    Guy,   27 

Fenelon,    319 

Ferguson,  252 

Feuerbach,   218 

Fichte,    63,    124 

Finot,    Je^n,    375 

Flint,    Robert,    64,   76,    312 

Florus,   no 

Fontana,   252 

Fontenelle,   319 

Forel,   90 

Francis  II.  of  Austria,  294 

Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,  296 

Fraunhofer,    366 

Frederick    the    Great,    52,   281 

Frederick    William    III.,    294 

Froude,  James  Anthony,  20 

Fustel   de   Coulanges,    182 


Galen,  81 

Galileo,  371 

Galton,   272 

Galvani,    368 

Gambetta,   25,   129 

Gamerus,    16 

Ganz,  Edward,   68,  72,  75,  80 

Garibaldi,    25 

Geissler,    Heinrich,    367 

Genebrard,   16 

Gentilis,   Alberic,    345 

George  III.  of  England,  294 

Giacomoni,  4 

Giddings,   F.   H.,   167 

Gladstone,   294 

Gobineau,   71 

Goethe,   14,  39,  68,   140,  252,  301, 

317,  408 
Graf,  Arturo,   129 
Grote,    1 1 
Grouchy,   18 

Gumplowicz,    108,    305,    360 
Guyau,   231 

Hanotaux,    Gabriel,    n 

Hardyng,   n 

Harold,  King,  69 

Hartenstein,    G,   2 

Hartmann,  Eduard  von,  75 

Hartzenbusch,  129 

Hegel,  68,  75,   124,  260 

Henry  IV.  of  France,  52,   193 

Heraclitus,    316,    322 

Herbart,   107,  252 

Herder,   68,   72,   81 

Hermann,    76 

Hesiod,    316 

Hippocrates,  81 

Hobbes,    188,   277,   345 

Hoffding,    Harald,    345 

Holinshed,    n 

Homer,    36,    341 

Horace,    317 

Huber,   90 

Huggins,    366 

Humboldt,  W.  von,  8,  33,  56,  80 

Hume,  20 

Huss,  4 


Icarus,  372 

Isidor    of    Seville,    63 


INDEX 


417 


Javillier,  274 
Jesus,  59,  295 
Joan  of  Arc,  27 
John   of  Leyden,   280 
Johnson,  Samuel,  14 
Jouffroy,    305 

Kant,    Immanuel,   2,    12,   71,    124, 

320,    368 
Karr,   Alphonse,   311 
Kautsky,  Karl,  85 
Keller,   Gottfried,   14 
Kepler,  213 
Kinglake,   11 
Kirchhoff,   366 
Kleist,  Heinrich  von,  307 
Kossuth,   Louis,   291 
Krause,  56,  79 
Kronos,   185 
Kupferschmied,   16 

Laboulaye,   Edouard,   3 

Lacombe,  P.,  1,  15,  44,  48,  252 

Lamartine,  318 

Lamotte,  338 

Lamprecht,    K.,    10 

Lanfrey,  11 

Laplace,    368 

La  Rochefoucauld,   176 

Lassalle,    Ferdinand,    294 

Lavoisier,   147,   367 

Lazarus,   Moriz,   121,   126 

Le  Bon,  Gustave,  368 

Leibnitz,    66,    210,    320 

Leo,  Heinrich,  80 

Leonardo   da   Vinci,   337 

Leroy-Beaulieu,  Paul,  202 

Lesseps,  Ferd.  de,  78 

Lessing,  223 

Lilienfeld,  von,  in 

Lilienthal,   360 

Lingard,    56 

Lingg,  Hermann,   177 

Linus,   316 

Lippert,  304 

Littre,   in 

Livius,   Titus    (Livy),   7,   n,   317 

Locke,  John,    303 

Lombroso,    Paola,    25 

Lopez,    333 

Lotze,  Hermann,  30,  109,  312,  318 


Louis,  Saint,  219 

Louis   XIV.,   201 

Louis  XVL,  3 

Lubbock,    Sir    John    (Lord    Ave- 

bury),   90,   320 
Lucan,   345 
Lucretius,  228 
Luden,  Heinrich,  72 
Luther,   109 

McCarthy,    Justin,    n 
Machiavelli,  285,   316 
Mach,  Ernst,   108,  395 
Macker,    16 
Maine,  H.   S.,   109 
Maistre,  Count  Joseph  de,  391 
Marcus    Aurelius,    219 
Marius,    12,    333 
Marks,   Mary   A.   M.,   3 
Martial,   353 
Martin,  200 
Marx,  Karl,   84 
Masaniello,   291 
Maspero,  11 
Maurenbrecher,    9 
Mendelssohn,  Moses,  223 
Menzel,  Wolfgang,  3 
Metchnikoff,    Elie,    375 
Methuselah,  60 
Michael   Angelo,   341 
Michel,   Hugo,   374 
Michelet,  Jules,   320 
Mill,  John   Stuart,   106,   320 
Milliet,   J.   Paul,   260 
Milton,    n,    341 
Minos,    127 
Moltke,    25,    384 
Mommsen,  Theodor,   6,   n 
Monmouth,  n 
Monod,  Gabriel,  19 
Montesquieu,    81,    109 
Mortillet,   Dr.,   146 
Miiller,  Johannes,  63,  68 

Napoleon,     n,     18,    25,    74,    127, 

288,  291,  332 
Napoleon   III.,  291 
Neander,    16 
Newton,  213 
Noah,   60 
Nostradamus,  364 


4i8 


INDEX 


Oldenburg,  Hermann,  36a 
Ollivier,  Emile,  11 
Orosius,  65 
Ossian,    72 
Ovid,  155,  317 

Paracelsus,    114,    322 
Pascal,  Blaise,  4,   no 
Paul,  the  Apostle,  51 
Peabody,   296 
Percy,   James,   200 
Perrault,    318,    338 
Petofy,  Alexander,  129 
Phidias,   341 
Philo,  49 

Plato,    151,   215,   316,   344 
Platter,  Thomas,   14 
Plimsoll,  283 
Pliny,   35,   116,   307 
Pollard,   6 
Polybius,   81 

Pomponius  Secundus,   116 
Porsenna,    n 
Prometheus,  31 
Psammetichus,  12 
Ptolemaeus,  35 

Rameses,   12 

Ramsay,   Sir   William,   274 

Ranke,  Leopold   von,   5 

Raphael,   341 

Rauber,   171 

Ravaillac,  193 

Raymond  Lully,  372 

Reinach,  Salomon,  373 

Reuter,   Fritz,   73 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  52 

Rienzi,   Nicola  di,  291 

Rigaut,    Hippolyte,    318,    338 

Ritter,  Karl,  81 

Robespierr;.,  293 

Rocholl,  R.,  48,   67 

Rochow,    von,   205 

Roland,   25 

Romagnosi,  304 

Roon,   von,  25 

Rosas,    280,    333 

Rougemont,  Frederic  de,  225,  248, 

337 
Rousseau,  75,   128,  155,   168,  195, 

238,  360 
Ruge,  76 


Sadi,    2 

Sainte-Beuve,  35 

Savonarola,   295 

Schaeffle,   112,   360 

Schelling,   56,   63,   124,  227 

Schiller,  Friedrich,  1,  10,  97,  341, 

353 
Schlegel,  Friedrich  von,  68,  75 
Schlozer,    107 
Schopenhauer,    Arthur,    80,     109, 

3i8 
Schreber,  von,   172 
Schurtz,  177 

Schweinichen,    Hans    von,    14 
Schwerin,  Count  de,  200 
Scribe,  4 

Sextus   Empiricus,   104 
Shakespeare,    341 
Sighele,   Scipio,   115 
Simmel,    Georg,    6,    18,    44,    55, 

108,  353 
Smith,  Adam,  142 
Sophocles,  341 
Spencer,    Herbert,    8,    109,    144, 

179,  272,   304,   322 
Spiiller,   129 
Stahl,  367 

St.  Germain,  Comte  de,  372 
St.   Pierre,   Abbe   de,   73,   320 
St.   Simon,  20,  179,  320 
Steinthal,   121,   126 
Strauss,   231 
Sulla,    12 
Sybel,    11 

Tacitus,    190 

Taine,  40 

Tasso,   341 

Terrason,    338 

Themistocles,  12 

Thiers,   II,   25 

Thompson,  R.   Campbell,   31 

Thor,    127,  235 

Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,   312 

Treitschke,   n 

Trendelburg,   80 

Trezza,   55 

Turgot,  81,  320 

Tyler,    320 

Uhlenhuth,   94 
Ulrici,    80 


INDEX 


419 


Vacherot,   7,  391 

Vico,    Giambattiita,    68,    71,    297, 

319,    357 
Vincent   de   Paul,   Saint,   296 
Volncy,   207 
Volta,    368 
Voltaire,  48,  64,  67,  81,  109,  123, 

238 

Waddington,    129 
Wagner,   A.,    304 
Wallenstein,   10 
Ward,    167,    304 
Washington,   Booker  T.,   130 
Washington,   George,  291 


Wasmann,  90 
Weber,   73 
Weismann,  114 
Wells,   H.   G.,   32,   90 
Werner,   Karl,    71 
William   the   Conqueror,   16 
Winckler,   Hugo,   392 
Wolf,    F.   A.,    69 
Worms,   Rene,    112,   360 
Wundt,    1 01,    108 


Zeno,   70,   312 

Zeuxis,  341 

Zola,  Emile,   19,   103 


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